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University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 N Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 8618770
Dobos, Jean A.
A SOCIAL ECOLOGY STUDY OF MEDIA COMPETITION AND MANAGERIAL GRATIFICATIONS FROM BUSINESS NEWS
The Ohio State University Ph.D. 1986
University Microfilms
International300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106
Copyright 1986
by
Dobos, Jean A.
All Rights Reserved A SOCIAL ECOLOGY STUDY OF MEDIA COMPETITION
AND MANAGERIAL GRATIFICATIONS FROM BUSINESS NEWS
DISSERTATION
presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate
School of The Ohio State University
By
Jean A. Dobos, B.S., M.A.
*****
The Ohio State University
1986
Dissertation Committee: Approved By:
John W. Dimmick, Ph.D.
Stephen Acker, Ph.D.
Donald Cegala, Ph.D.
Adviser
Department of Communication Copyright by
Jean A. Dobos
1986 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Formulas from "Measures of Competitive Superiority for Communication
Media, Products and Services".
Copyright 1985 John Dimmick.
Used with permission.
ii VITA
1961...... B.S. in Biology Notre Dame College Cleveland, Ohio
1980-1982...... Research Assistant Department of Communication Cleveland State University
1982...... M.A. in Communication Cleveland State University
1982-1985...... Teaching Associate Department of Communication The Ohio State University
1985-1986...... Visiting Instructor Department of Communication Cleveland State University
PUBLICATIONS
Dobos, J. and S. Grieve. Synchronous computer conferencing: Protocols and procedures for productive use of time. In C. Olgren (ed), Teleconferencing '85, Madison, WI: Center for Interactive Programs, 1985.
Jeffres, L. W. and J. Dobos. Communication and neighborhood mobilization. Urban Affairs Quarterly, September, 1984.
Jeffres, L. W. and J. Dobos. Neighborhood newspaper audiences. Journal of Newspaper Research, Winter, 1983.
Jeffres, L. W. and J. Dobos. Communication and Neighborhood Development: A^ Survey of Three Cleveland Neighborhoods. Monograph No. 4, Communication Research Center, Cleveland State University, 1982. ABSTRACT
Niche theory was combined with the uses and gratifications perspective in a social ecology study of competitive superiority in providing managerial need gratifications among the population of general and specialized news media which offer business news content.
Telephone survey research methods included a pilot study which elicited sixteen managerial gratifications sought from business news.
Interviews with 351 managers were completed in spring 1985 in Franklin county, Ohio. Factor analysis yielded two parallel dimensions of gratifications sought and obtained related to the macro or external and micro or operational business environments, which persisted across breakdowns by managerial levels, size and type of industry.
On the macro dimension: (1) more competitive intensity characterized the niche overlaps between the specialized business media, between the trade press and news magazines and cable television, and between the general news media; (2) the Wall Street
Journal had the highest niche breadth and was superior to the trade press and four general news mediums; (3) the trade press, newspapers, magazines and cable had nearly equal niche breadths and were superior to the narrow niched broadcast television; (4) among the managerial
iv subgroups the trade press was superior to newspapers and television for top managers, news magazines were superior to cable for managers at mid-levels and in non-service industries, and cable television was superior to broadcast television for firstline supervisors and among managers in small businesses and service industries.
On the micro dimension: (1) competitive intensity was relatively high between the specialized media, between the Journal and magazines, and between the general news media; (2) the trade press had the highest niche breadth and was superior to the Journal and the four general news media; (3) broader niched newspapers and magazines were superior to cable and broadcast television; and (A) among managerial subgroups cable was superior to broadcast television among managers in service industries.
Implications of the findings were: (1) managerial gratifications from business news content are rather homogeneous and tied to social role expectations, (2) the functional differentiation or division of labor among the media differed when need gratifications from business news content were anayzed by macro and micro factorial dimensions, (3) the Journal and trade press were least vulnerable to competitive displacement on the macro and micro dimensions respectively, but cable poses a potential threat to the other general news media, (A) print superiority over electronic media may be related to the cognitive orientation of the macro and micro factors, as well as time and schedule constraints.
v TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... ii
VITA ...... iii
ABSTRACT...... iv
LIST OF TABLES...... ix
LIST OF FIGURES...... xii
CHAPTER PAGE
I. RATIONALE AND LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 1 Introduction ...... 1 Increasing Diversity ...... 2 Audience Needs ...... 4 Systems Theories ...... 9 Dependency Theory ...... 12 Organizational Models ...... 13 Niche Defined ...... 14 Niche Dimensionality ...... 15 Niche Breadth and Overlap ...... 17 Competitive Displacement ...... 17 Uses and Gratifications ...... 19 Social Origins of Needs ...... 20 Gratifications Sought and Obtained ...... 22 Business News Content ...... 23 Functional Differentiation ...... 25 Functional Alternatives ...... 26 Niche Theory and Media Gratifications ...... 27 Overview of Subsequent Chapters ...... 29
II. METHODS ...... 31 Overview of Research Methods ...... 32 Sampling Method ...... 33 Pilot Study ...... 35 Pilot Design and Administration ...... 36 Pilot Results ...... 39
vi Main Study ...... 47 Questionnaire Design ...... 47 Pretesting and Administration ...... 49 Quantitative Data Analysis ...... 51 Conceptual Definitions ...... 51 Operational Definitions ...... 53 Pairwise Comparisons ...... 57 Managerial Subgroups ...... 58 Reliability and Validity ...... 59
III. RESULTS: NICHE DIMENSIONALITY ...... 61 Introduction ...... 61 GS Confirmatory Factor Analysis ...... 62 GS Exploratory Factor Analysis ...... 65 Macro and Micro Dimensions ...... 67 GO Factor Analysis ...... 68 Manager Levels: GS Dimensions ...... 71 Manager Levels: GO Dimensions ...... 74 Company Size and Type of Industry ...... 79
IV. RESULTS: NICHE BREADTH AND OVERLAP ...... 81 Introduction ...... 81 Niche Breadth ...... 82 Manager Levels ...... 85 Company Size and Type of Industry ...... 86 Niche Overlap ...... 89 Generalist versus Specialist ...... 92 Generalist versus Generalist ...... 94 Specialist versus Specialist ...... 96 Manager Levels ...... 96 Company Size and Type of Industry ...... 99
V. RESULTS: COMPETITVE SUPERIORITY ...... 104 Macro Dimension ...... 105 Managerial Levels ...... 109 Company Size ...... 117 Type of Industry ...... 123 Micro Dimension ...... 129 Managerial Levels ...... 133 Company Size ...... 141 Type of Industry ...... 146 Summary ...... 151
vii VI. SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION ...... 155 Summary ...... 155 Niche Dimensionality ...... 155 Niche Breadth and Overlap ...... 156 Media Superiorities ...... 158 Limitations of the Study ...... 161 Description ...... 161 Superiority versus Equivalence ...... 161 Reliability and Validity ...... 162 Implications and Areas for Future Study ...... 166 Managerial Gratifications ...... 167 Medium v. Content Gratifications ...... 169 Competitive Displacement ...... 171 Print versus Electronic ...... 173
LIST OF REFERENCES ...... 178
APPENDICES
A. Business News Pilot Questionnaire ...... 188
B. Business News Main Study Questionnaire ...... 192
viii LIST OF TABLES
TABLE PAGE
1. Pilot Study Categories of Managerial Information Needs .... 41
2. GS Hypothesized Environmental Dimensions ...... 43
3. GS Hypothesized Cognitive Style Dimensions ...... 44
4. Pilot Study Number and Types of Media Use ...... 46
5. Principal Axis Factor Solution for Gratifications Sought ... 66
6. LISREL Estimates for Gratifications Sought and Obtained .... 69
7. Principal Axis Factor Solution for Gratifications Sought by Managerial Levels ...... 73
8. LISREL Estimates for Gratifications Sought and Obtained Firstline Managers ...... 75
9. LISREL Estimates for Gratifications Sought and Obtained Middle Managers ...... 76
10. LISREL Estimates for Gratifications Sought and Obtained Top Managers ...... 77
11. Mean GO and Niche Breadth...... 84
12. Mean GO and Niche Breadth by Managerial Levels ...... 86
13. Mean GO and Niche Breadth by Company Size and Type of Industry ...... 87
14. Mean GO and Niche Overlap for Media Pairs ...... 91
15. Mean GO and Niche Overlap by Managerial Levels ...... 97
16. Mean GO and Niche Overlap by Large and Small Businesses ... 100
17. Mean GO and Niche Overlap by Type of Industry ...... 102
18. Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities ...... 107
ix 19. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha®.05) for Macro Dimension ...... 108
20. Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities Firstline Managers ...... 110
21. Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities Middle Managers ...... Ill
22. Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities Top Managers ...... 112
23. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha®.05) for Macro Dimension - Firstline Managers ...... 114
24. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha®.05) for Macro Dimension - Mid Managers ...... 115
25. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha®.05) for Macro Dimension - Top Managers ...... 116
26. Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Large Businesses ...... 118
27. Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Small Businesses ...... 119
28. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha®.05) for Macro Dimension - Large Businesses ...... 121
29. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha®.05) for Macro Dimension - Small Businesses ...... * ..... 122
30. Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Service Industries ...... 124
31. Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Non-Service Industries ...... 125
32. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha®.05) for Macro Dimension - Service Industries ...... 127
33. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha®.05) for Macro Dimension - Non-Service Industries ...... 128
34. Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities ...... 131
35. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha®.05) for Micro Dimension...... 132
x 36. Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities Firstline Managers ...... 13A
37. Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities Mid Managers ...... 135
38. Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities Top Managers ...... 136
39. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.05) for Micro Dimension - Firstline Managers ...... 138
AO. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.05) for Micro Dimension - Mid Managers ...... 139
Al. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.05) for Micro Dimension - Top Managers ...... 1A0
A2. Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Large Businesses ...... 1A2
A3. Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Small Businesses ...... 1A 3
AA. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.05) for Micro Dimension - Large Businesses ...... 1AA
A5. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.05) for Micro Dimension - Small Businesses ...... 1A 5
A6. Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Service Industries ...... 1A 7
A7. Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Non-Service Industries ...... 1A8
A8. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.05) for Micro Dimension - Service Industries ...... 1A9
A9. Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.05) for Micro Dimension - Non-Service Industries ...... 150
50. Power Analysis Summary of Macro and Micro Superiorities ... 152
51. Media Choice Compared to Level of Gratifications Obtained from Other Media ...... 16A
xi LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE PAGE
1. Formulas for Niche Breadth and Niche Overlap ...... 54
2. Formulas for Sd and Sm Superiority ...... 55
xii CHAPTER I
RATIONALE AND LITERATURE REVIEW
This is a social ecology study of the environment of media organizations. The study seeks to understand the relation between the diversity of media forms, audience needs and media content. To this end, the study focuses on one social collectivity, the managerial audience, and its patterns of media use and gratifications derived from business news content. The central question is: How does this social environment support a diverse population of media competitors?
This chapter presents a theoretical rationale, drawing upon the literature from media uses and gratifications, organizations and environments, and the ecological theory of the niche.
Introduction
The world of commerce and industry captured media attention in colonial newspapers. Today, a diversity of print and electronic media forms offer business news content, including newspapers, magazines, radio, broadcast and cable television, and computerized information services. The general news media include business news as part of their overall news coverage. This group includes newspapers, magazines, radio, broadcast and cable television. Other media, the specialized business and trade press, offer business news exclusively. 2
Increasing Diversity Beginning in the 1970's, the celebrated
marriage between telephone and computer technology permitted remote
users to access large data bases of business news and information.
With the promise of increased productivity, these electronic
publishing ventures are targeted at business, institutional and
professional users. Publishers and media conglomerates found these
services synergistically compatible with their print ventures.
Following the early lead of Dow Jones and Reuters, online
information services began to proliferate in the 1980's. Dow Jones,
parent company of the Wall Street Journal , launched its computerized
News Retrieval Service in 1971 (Wednt, 1982) and fought fierce
competition from Reuters worldwide Monitor system, introduced in 1973
(Osnos, 1983; Rosenberg, 1982). Today Capital Cities Communications
and Knight Ridder offer electronic news services targeted at the
financial industry, but face stiff competition in this sector from Dun
& Bradstreet's DunsNet and DunsPlus. McGraw Hill, publisher of over
60 trade press magazines and newsletters including Business Week ,
provides the Dodge Report online to the construction industry, and
similar services for the hospital, electronics and metals industries.
At the same time, business coverage expanded steadily and content diversity increased in the general news media. After decades of criticism of daily newspaper and television business news reporting
(Carswell, 1938; Gallup, 1955; Griggs, 1963; Welles, 1973), studies began to show changes in business reporting. Content analysis
spanning 1931-1979 showed five major dailies placed less emphasis on 3
the stock market and the national economy, and more emphasis on news
of the international economy and the professional business community
(Barkin, 1982). Feldman and Aronoff (1980) reported increases in the
number of business news stories and their length in three major dailies. Hynds (1980) documented the growth of daily and weekly
business sections in national and local newspapers. With NBC taking
the lead in 1971, the three television networks hired economics
editors to broaden analysis beyond simple reporting of Dow Jones
averages on morning, evening and late night news programs (Bonafede,
1980; MacDougall, 1981). The first 30 minute business news program,
"Wall Street Week", debuted on PBS in 1970, followed by "Nightly
Business Report" in 1979 (Canape, 1982).
Among the business press, the Wall Street Journal added its
second section in June 1980 (Rosenberg, 1982), and 500,000 new
subscribers were added by June 1984 (Hall, 1984). Fortune magazine converted from a monthly to a biweekly in 1978 to better compete with
Forbes and Business Week , and business and trade press publications now outnumber consumer magazines (Gussow, 1984). City and regional business newspapers and magazines jumped from eight in 1978 to 54 in
1981 (Radding, 1981) and climbed to 88 in 1984 (Fannin, 1984).
Cable entered the business news arena in the early 1980's. "Wall
Street Week" had dominated the television screen since 1970, then a
sudden burst of business news programs exploded on cable television
(Kelley, 1983). Since its November 1981 start-up, Financial News
Network (FNN) has offered a 13 hour weekday schedule capped by the 4
nightly one hour FNN Final, and went full time in 1985 (Mahler, 1984).
ESPN, the sports network, introduced the "Wharton/Business Times
Management Report" into its early morning daily schedule in March
1983, and added "Business Times" to its weekend schedule in October
1984 ("ESPN's 'Business Times'", 1984). CNN launched its 24 hour news
channel in June 1980 with two daily programs, "Moneyline" and "Inside
Business" and the weekend wrapup "Moneyweek" (Kelley, 1983). CNN
boosted its line-up to five daily and weekend business programs in
January 1985.
The proliferation of business news content across a widening
spectrum of media raises speculation about audience needs for this
type of news. What kinds of needs and interests do audiences have for
business news and information, and what kinds of audiences use
business news?
Audience Needs The concept of the audience as isolated
individuals without social ties came under criticism in the 1950's
(Friedson, 1953; Riley and Riley, 1959). As Bauer (1973, p. 141) put
it, the audience approaches its use of the mass media "not as isolated
individuals but as members of social groups". Derived from Durkheim's
notion of social collectivities, social ties implies not only group
affiliation, but also membership in larger organizational and
institutional structures (Davison, 1974). The notion of
collectivities also implies more loosely connected sets of people enacting similar roles. Sets of role expectations, role perceptions
and role behaviors (Sorbin & Jones, 1956) are embodied in the norms 5
and values of the social collectivity, hence the relevant unit of analysis is not the individual, but the individual in a social role
(Parsons, 1967).
In a synthesis of studies across all types of managers Mintzberg
(1975) identified ten common managerial roles. Three interpersonal roles stem from the manager's formal position in the hierarchy: the figurehead, the leader and the liaison. Three informational roles include monitoring, disseminating and acting as a spokesperson. Four roles described the manager as decision-maker: as entrepreneur/innovator, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator.
Nontheless, the managerial role may be context-specific.
Depending on the organization, role expectations and role enactment may embody different managerial activities and communication behaviors. Pondy (1983) argues that role expectations evolve from the lived experiences and tacit norms in the organization, and give rise to both knowlege-based and action-based frames of reference. Norms for information sharing, for example, have been found to vary from organization to organization (Dewhirst, 1971). Since organizations differ in their products or services, managerial knowledge and activity task reauirements may be specific to service or industry sectors (Downs & Hain, 1982; Rockart, 1979). Insurance executives focus on developing new types of policies, while manufacturers concentrate on cost controls. Managerial activities are more diverse in small businesses, while managers in larger companies are more likely to perform specialized functions which may require more detailed information. Finally, top managers deal with more complex and ambiguous tasks, need both "hard" and "soft" information and use different scanning strategies than firstline supervisors or middle managers (Mintzberg, 1975; Thomas, 1984; Waldo, 1985).
The information needs of managers may be as complex as their social roles. Feldman and March (1981) have argued, for example, that information serves a symbolic function, legitimizing the nature of managerial decision-making. Thus, managers may engage in constant surveillance, ignore available information, and routinely gather more information than is needed. In order to gather support for planning decisions, Quinn (1980) described how managers engage in a process of
"logical incrementalism", marked by continuous information gathering and long gestation periods.
Even traditional approaches to managerial decision-making depict information needs as complex, related to coordination of internal processes and managing environmental constraints in social, economic, politcal and technology sectors (Harrison, 1981). Managers require efficiency and effectiveness performance measures, and must be able to plan for and react to business conditions in the general and operating environments. Managers must be able "to relate to their environment by developing opportunities and warding off threats...building on strengths and overcoming weaknesses in their operations" (Wiersema,
1983, p. 47). Another more recent stream of research incorporates the findings from left-brain and right-brain research (Agor, 1985;
Isenberg, 1984; Mintzberg, 1976; Rowe, Bennis & Boulgarides, 1984).
These studies suggest that managers use two cognitive styles — the
analytic and intuitive — in their information processing and
decision-making, and the ability to use intuitive skills is positively
related to managerial level. The analytic style reflects the classic
rational approach to decision-making: identify a problem and
alternative solutions, assemble and analyze relevant data, compare the alternatives and select an optimal solution. While the analytic style is deductive, the intuitive style is inductive. The intuitive style
relies on the ability "to see the big picture" or the whole problem rather than its component parts. The intuitive style asssimilates global information from a wide array of sources.
From these considerations the managerial audience for business news can be conceptualized as individuals enacting a situation-specific social role with multiple common informational and decisional components. Managers use both analytic and intuitive cognitive styles, but intuitive skills increase at higher managerial levels. Monitoring and surveillance activity is directed at multiple environmental sectors, but information needs may vary according to the specific organizational context.
Organizations have formal and informal internal information gathering procedures, yet experience difficulties in gathering information about their external environment. Informal sources include organizational intelligence networks (Goldhaber, Dennis, 8
Richetto & Wiio, 1979). Formal sources include accounting systems
and/or newer management information or decision support systems
(Ahituv & Neuman, 1984; Meador, Guyote & Keen, 1984). Although
organizations recognize the need for scanning the external environment
(Mesch, 1984), information is often collected internally by many
specialized units and lacks comprehensiveness (Pfeffer & Salancik,
1978).
The news media are one of many external sources of organizational
intelligence, and may be superior to other public or private sources
(Wilensky, 1967). The general news media and business press provide
organized information about national and international business,
industry and consumer trends. Information from interpersonal sources,
though highly valued, is more likely to be disaggregated and
speculative (Mintzberg, 1975).
Other sources of external environmental information include documents and reports from government, university, trade association,
corporate, union and consumer organizations (Sammon, Kurland &
Spitalnic, 1984). These outside sources vary in their relative
availability and require more concentrated acquisition efforts.
Company employees must be directed to acquire relevant studies and
reports from outside sources, and utilization hinges on further
interpretation and dissemination. The media are ubiquitous, however,
and with the exception of broadcast radio and television, most media are readily available by subscription. Thus, managers enacting their
social roles as members of business organizations may turn to the 9
media for information about various sectors of the business envi ronment.
In sum, the diversity of media forms and business news content may be related to audience needs for information. The managerial audience, as one social collectivity, has a complex set of information needs. A diversity of media organizations offering business news content are one external source of serving these needs. From a systems perspective, media organizations interact with audiences in their social environment, seeking to satisfy their content related needs. The central question becomes: How does the social environment support a diverse population of media organizations? To this end, the sections to follow will review system theory and its applications in dependency theory and organizational models, and introduce the ecological theory of the niche as a framework by which to gauge the competitive superiority of diverse media forms in satisfying managerial needs for business news.
Systems Theories
Systems models have been applied in the social sciences by media and organization theorists. General systems theory describes a set of relationships between social units and their environments. In turn, these interactions imply a set of system properties. Most relevant to the current study are the properties of interdependency, organized complexity and future-present time (Fisher, 1978).
Interdependency occurs because organizations as social units are dependent on other social units in their environments for inputs of 10
information and resources, while organizational outputs are consumed by other social units in the environment (Scott, 1981). Organized complexity refers to the functional differentiation or specialization within the system, derived from the need to manage parallel complexities in the environment. Future-present time is related to the systems property of self-regulation, whereby social units achieve a dynamic equilibrium by control and adaptation to the environment, simultaneously balancing tendencies toward stability and flexibility.
In contrast to the static equilibrium of mechanistic systems, dynamic equilibrium refers to the slow but steady systemic progress toward increasing complexity. Since successful variations tend to be retained, the current structural-functional status of the system is a precusor of future states. Emery and Trist (1973) termed this property a contextual appreciation of the future in the present.
Media organizations viewed as social systems also exhibit these properties. Hirsch (1977) has refered to the interdependency and organized complexity of media systems, while others (Turow, 1983;
Urban, 1984) have commented on the current systemic status as a precursor to future states. A single media organization is interconnected with an array of news sources, production and distribution companies, regulators, advertisers and audiences, and competitors in a broad and complex industry system (Hirsch, 1977).
New media may simply become vehicles for repackaging and distributing content as media corporations look for synergistic outlets for current products (Turow, 1983). At a macro level, the short term dynamic 11
equllibrium achieved by new and old media will influence the future relationship between media and society (Urban, 1984). The relative ability of generalist and specialist media to satisfy managerial audience needs for business news in the short term implies future viability in the competition for this resource in the social envi ronment.
Systems theories also provide three important conceptions of organizations and environments: the organizational domain, the organization set, symbiotic and competitive interdependence (Scott,
1981). Organizations make domain choices of products, services and customers to be served (Thompson, 1967). Domain choices among media organizations distinguish the general news media from the specialized business and trade press. The general news media include business content as a part of their news coverage, with increasing coverage and expertise designed to attract upscale audience segments. Specialists like the Wall Street Journal and the trade press concentrate exclusively on news pertinent to the world of business. In turn, these domain choices define the relevant task environment (Dill, 1958) or interorganizational field (Warren, 1967), or organizational set
(Evan, 1966) of competitors, suppliers, regulators and customers interacting with the focal organization. The media as focal organizations interact with a set of organizations or social collectivities in their social, political, economic and technological environments. The managerial audience and their informaton needs provide one set of resources in the social environment necessary to 12
survival of media organizations.
Dependency Theory. DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach (1975) posited a tri-partite relationship between media, audiences and society. These relationships are characterized by dependency needs, i.e., "the satisfaction of needs or the attainment of goals by one party is contingent upon the resources of another party" (Ball-Rokeach &
DeFleur, 1976, p. 6). Production and distribution components of the media system are dependent on advertisers and audiences. For their part, audiences depend on media for information external to their social groups, i.e. not available through their social ties and networks. Thus, advertisers and audiences are configured as resources for media organizations. At the same time, the media provide resources for need satisfaction of audiences, configured as members of multiple referent groups.
Moreover, DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach (1975, p. 32) suggest that new media forms, meeting needs similar to old media forms, will diffuse rapidly in a society, threatening survival of old media forms. The appearance of new media forms may provide new functional alternatives to old media forms. While the emergence of radio and news magazines slowed the growth of newspaper circulation, both radio and newspapers were threatened when television entered the media mix. Television provided an alternative resource to radio for satisfaction of entertainment needs, and radio faced extinction. To survive, radio diversified into specialized formats in each market, i.e. became more functionally differentiated. Network television gained an edge on 13
newspapers as early as 1963, and Increased its lead by 21 percentage points in 1982 as t.he preferred medium for news (Roper, 1983). In response, newspapers increased specialized content, to appeal to a wider range of audience needs (Smith, 1980). More recent data shows newspapers have decreased a variety of special features, but sports and business news coverage increased substantially (Bogart, 1985).
Thus, dependency theory envelops within a systems model the notions of functional alternatives and functional differentiation to explain the organized complexity of the mass media in society.
Organization theories suggest two mechanisms by which the social environment supports a diverse set of organizations: adaptation and selection. These mechanisms are directed at organizational survival in complex and competitive systems.
Organizational Models. Organizational success is defined differently in adaptation and selection models (Aldrich & Pfeffer,
1976; Ulrich & Barney, 1984). Resource dependency, an adaptation model, views organizations as political coalitions managing dependence on other organizations that control critical resources in their external environment. Coalitions form within the organization and with external social actors. Coalitions engage in adaptation strategies such as mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and seeking favorable legislation in order to insure survival (Pfeffer &
Salancik, 1978).
As a selection model, population ecology embodies a variation-selection-retention evolutionary framework to explain the 14
relationship between organizations and environments. Organizational success is defined as survival, and selection is a matter of relative superiority over other organizational forms (Aldrich, 1979).
Population ecology posits a population of organizations competing for the available pool of resources in the environment (Hannan & Freeman,
1977). Niches provide a variety of resources, of varying dimensional complexity, sufficient to support a variety of organizational forms.
Across this range of resources some niche overlap or resource sharing may occur and indicates functional similarity among competing organizational forms. Organizations may occupy a broad or narrow niche space, signifying generalism or specialism in resource utilization (Freeman & Hannan, 1983). Thus, population ecology provides a framework from which to examine the relationship between the general news media and specialized business press and the managerial collectivity in their social environment. The following sections will examine in more detail the concepts of the niche, niche dimensionality, niche breadth and overlap.
Niche Defined. The concept of the niche is central to all ecological study, and refers to the functional role, status or position of a life-form in the population or community. Grinnell
(190A) was the first to use the term, referring to niches of birds with different species having different requirements, followed by the biologist Elton (1927), who defined the niche as the position of a species in the trophic hierarchy. The sociolgist McKenzie (1934) wrote of sustenance as well as spatial niches in human communities. Hawley (1950, p. 44) further noted that the community can be viewed as an "organization of niches, since the activities of each class of organism influence the activities of every other class in the association". Whittaker (1975, p. 77) pointed out that the niche is not simply the static functional role or position of a species, but encompasses the dynamic notion of the relative position of a life-form in juxtaposition to other forms. Thus, the niche represents the sum total of the spatial, temporal and trophic adaptations of the individual, population or community to its environment (Pianka, 1978, p. 238).
Ecologists are also interested in the cooperative and competitive processes by which niche adaptations occur, with emphasis on competitive relations as the major organizing principle. When organisms or populations share the same environment, it may be advantageous to avoid interaction, making direct competition elusive to study. As a result, ecologists prefer to view competition as indirect, with utilization of a resource by one population limiting the availability of that resource to another population (Ricklefs,
1973, p. 522). The ecological organization of the niche emerges, then, as organizational forms partition the available resources along some set of niche dimensions.
Niche Dimensionality. The first steps toward a set of formal axiomatic theoretical statements began with Hutchinson (1957), who defined the niche as a hypervolume in n-dimensional space. The distribution of an ecological unit's utilization of a single 16
environmental resource can be plotted in one-dimensional space. When distributions are plotted across two or three environmental dimensions, the resulting intersections form a hypervolume. A multidimensional niche implies that some members in the population may compete on one dimension, but not for other resource factors.
Moreover, if the dimensions are orthogonal, then resource utilization can be considered separately for each factor (May, 1973).
Hutchinson also distinguished between the fundamental and realized niche of a species. The fundamental niche is the hypothetical idealized niche, attainable in the absence of competitors, while the realized niche is the actual niche achieved under existing competitive conditions. Realized niches can be expected to differ, when two or more populations subsist on the same set of resources in the environment. If the utilization of a resource by one population makes it unavailable to another population, then the realized niches of the populations will differ. Niche differences will occur as each population utilizes a distinct set of resources both within and across different dimensions. Thus, a fundamental question for an ecological study is, how many dimensions are there?
Once niche dimensionality is defined, then precise description of niches is necessary. These descriptors must account for the distinct patterns of resource utilization in the population, as well as the amounts or resource sharing between organizational forms in the population. In other words, the indicators should describe the sustenance relations between the population and the resources in the 17
environment, and the competitive relations among organizational forms in the population. Toward this end, the concepts of niche breadth and niche overlap were defined mathematically by Levins (1968).
Niche Breadth and Overlap. Niche breadth refers to the distance across a resource dimension in the niche hypervolume, and describes the functional differentiation in an organizational form.
Broad niched forms exploit a wide range of resources, while forms with narrow niches utilize few resource categories. Broad niched forms are characterized as generalists, while narrow niched forms are termed specialists. Thus, another question addressed by niche theory is the amount of functional differentiation among organizational forms in the population.
Niche overlap defines the extent of functional similarity between two organizational forms in the population. The greater the overlap, the more intense the competition. Complete or perfect overlap indicates identical utilization of the same resource categories by both populations. Zero overlap reflects ecological dissimilarity in resource utilization between the organizational forms in the populati on.
Competitive Displacement. Ecologists are also interested in the tolerable limits of overlap. The evolving nature of competition among four populations of media organizations for local, national or network and national spot advertising was reported by Dimmick and
Rothenbuehler (1984). The authors concluded that high overlap and competitive superiority were precusors of displacement effects of 18
television on radio. If the amount of overlap shows two forms are close competitors and one is the superior competitor, competitive displacement may occur as the other form may yield a portion of its niche. As the population evolves over time, the vulnerable member may become more differentiated and lower the overlap to permit coexistence. The authors attributed the continued survival of radio to its pre-television niche generalism. As television began to dominate the national category, radio could specialize on local advertising. Broad and narrow niched populations exploit the environmental resources differently and generalists are better prepared to survive in heterogeneous or changing environments.
In summary, systems concepts and properties of interdependency and functional differentiation provide a conceptual framework for the study of media organizations and their social environment. As a systems theory, population ecology and niche theory use niche breadth and niche overlap as descriptors of diversity and similarity in resource utilization by organizational forms in the population. Uses and gratifications studies have examined concepts of functional alternatives and division of labor to explain similarities and differences across a variety of media in providing audience need gratifications. The final section of this chapter will review the uses and gratifications approach and explicate these concepts and their relation to niche dimensionality, niche breadth and niche overlap. 19
Uses and Gratifications
The uses and gratifications approach addresses both audience needs and media diversity. Audience needs are derived from basic psychological and social structures characteristic of the life experience of the audience. Media diversity provides a wide range of choices from which to satisfy audience needs. Since a wide range of media competitors offer similar content, choice may be guided by expected gratifications.
Thus, expectations and need gratifications are posited as intervening variables in the uses and gratifications model, linking audience needs with media behaviors. Katz, Blumler, and Gurevitch
(1974, p. 20) summarized the components of the uses and gratifications model as concerned with "(1) the social and psychological origins of
(2) needs, which generate (3) expectations of (4) the mass media or other sources, which lead to (5) differential patterns of media exposure (or engagement in other activities), resulting in (6) need gratifications and (7) other consequences, perhaps mostly unintended o n e s .11
Despite a great deal of theoretical and empirical work, state of the art reviews (McLeod & Becker, 1981; Palmgreen, 1984) have noted that a major gap still exists in the first component of the model.
The vast majority of studies have concentrated on the psychological origins of needs, with little attention to the social origins.
Variables such as age, education, income and occupation have been measured, and treated as correlates of gratifications and media use. 20
Yet demographics are individual attributes. Such standardized measures do not necessarily capture the nature of participation in social life, which gives rise to social needs. As a result, these reviewers note, we know a great deal about the personal needs of individuals as individuals, not as social beings.
Social Origins of Needs. The study of social origins of needs has proceeded from the socialization perspective elaborated by Mcleod and O'Keefe (1972), requiring sampling of social units such as families (Lull, 1980). Work in this area among adolescents (Adoni,
1979; Johnstone, 1974 ; Kline, Miller & Morrison, 1974) depicts individuals as members of social groups or collectivities with social motivations guiding their media use. Suggesting different social structures between younger children and adolescents, Rubin (1979) found age to be negatively correlated with television viewing motivations. Rubin and Rubin (1982) defined contextual age among the elderly as a combination of social, psychological, and economic conditions; and found contextual age factors to be associated with viewing motivations and program viewing patterns. Finally, cohort analysis found a curvilinear relationship between life span position and media use for information (Dimmick, McCain & Bolton, 1979). These studies suggest that need gratifications differ at different stages of socialization: childhood, adolescence, early, middle and later adulthood.
The socialization perspective also implies that "the organizational structure and social relations of the work place" may be important areas of study (McLeod & O'Keefe, 1972, p. 160). Early research at Leeds University (Blumler & Eubank, 1970) examined the media use of trade unionists. Newspaper and magazine readership was directly related to social position in the union hierarchy. Readership was higher among top-ranking union officers than branch officials and lowest among shop stewards and rank-and-file members. In contrast, television viewing for current affairs news declined steadily from lower to higher ranks. Union officers also differed from shop stewards in ranking sixteen "tasks facing unions today".
In subsequent work on the social origins of needs, Blumler (1979) reported that work status and various facets of people's work situations were associated with different sets of media gratifications. Among full-time workers, for example, those who valued work as a means of self-expression, and were highly satisfied with their jobs and range of social contacts reported less use of television for diversion. Consistent with the notion of shared symbol spheres (Gerth & Mills, 1953), Blumler (1979, p. 27) writes of the normative influences or role expectations by which "individuals may learn from forces in their social environment which satisfactions people like themselves are expected to derive from media use".
Lichtenstein and Rosenfeld (1984) provided empirical support for normative expectations of various media in a sample of undergraduate students.
These studies suggest that socialization forces create expectations for role performance and role-related media use. Members. 22
of social groups need to meet these normative expectations. Thus, a set of needs originates from membership in social collectivities.
Moreover, stratification within the collectivity may be associated with differentiated need structures. As a result, managers may acquire a set of role-related media expectations, but we might also expect some differences in need structures across managerial levels.
Normative expectations of first-line managers, for example, may create information needs related to operational decisions. Information needs of top-level managers, on the other hand, may be derived from their planning role.
Thus, managers may learn a set of normative expectations of the business news content in diverse media. Identifying these expectations or gratifications sought from business news will help to address the question: How does the social environment support a diversity of media offering business news content? In this regard, researchers have distinguished between gratifications sought and gratifications obtained (Greenberg, 1974).
Gratifications Sought and Obtained. Conceptually, expectations or expected gratifications have been defined either as motivations or gratifications sought (GS), while need gratifications have been defined as gratifications obtained (GO). Empirically, research strategies have focused on dimension reduction techniques such as factor analysis to develop typologies of motives or gratifications sought. Audiences may derive different subsets of gratifications obtained from different media, programs or type of content. 23
Over the long history of uses and gratifications, researchers have examined audience motivations and gratifications across a spectrum of media and content. Typically, studies have reported three or more substantive dimensions which reflect the underlying need structures. Overall, the findings show an association between gratifications sought and obtained, and between gratifications and media exposure, medium choice, program choice and content choice
(Palmgreen, 1984).
Some studies have focused on one medium such as newspapers
(Berelson, 1949), radio (Kline, Miller & Morrison, 1974), network television (Rubin, 1981), or public television (Palmgreen & Rayburn,
1979). Others have investigated a particular type of content such as soap operas (Carveth and Alexander, 1985; Herzog, 1944; Rubin, 1985), political news (Adoni, 1979), or television news (Levy, 1978;
Palmgreen, Wenner & Rayburn, 1980). Some programs have also received scrutiny, such as the morning and evening network news (Palmgreen,
Wenner & Rayburn, 1981; Rayburn, Palmgreen & Acker, 1984), presidential debates (McLeod, Bybee & Durall, 1982), "60 Minutes"
(Rubin, 1981; Wenner, 1982) and "Roots" (Hur & Robinson, 1981).
Following the landmark Katz, Gurevitch and Haas (1973) study, still others have conducted cross-media comparisons (Frank & Greenberg,
1980; Kippax & Murray, 1980; Lichtenstein & Rosenfeld, 1984; Lometti,
Reeves & Bybee, 1977; Weaver, Wilhoit and deBock, 1980).
Business News Content. Only one uses and gratifications study addressed business news content. Frank and Greenberg (1980) conducted 24
a national study and described the media use and gratification patterns of eighteen television audience segments. Two segments are particularly relevant to the current study, either because of their interest in business or use of business news media. These segments were: Money and Nature's Products and Cosmopolitan Self-Enrichment.
The 59 gratifications statements used in the study were written to tap general physical, psychological, social and self-actualization needs, and did not deal with gratifications sought specifically from business news content. Average media use was computed for the entire sample and indexed at 100%, then above or below average percentage differences were calculated for each segment.
The Money and Nature's Products segment scored highest on the social interaction need factor, and this segment was composed of 35% managers and professionals with above average interest in news and investments. They were average in overall television viewing for investment, business and general news content. They were below average in readership of business and general news magazines, above average in daily newspaper readership including business sections, but below average for financial newspapers.
Managers and professionals composed 38% of the Cosmopolitan
Self-Enrichment segment, which scored highest on the intellectual stimulation factor. Overall television viewing was lowest of all audience segments, but were above average viewers of news and documentaries. They are among the heaviest users of print media, ranking first in readership of general news and business magazines, 25
and financial newspapers.
Other studies of diverse media and content have focused on similarities and differences in need gratifications. Two concepts have emerged to explain these findings: functional alternatives and functional differentiation. Some media have been found to fulfill similar sets of needs, and may serve as functional alternatives or substitute sources of need gratification. At the same time, a particular medium or type of content may satisfy a broad or narrow range of audience needs, i.e., to achieve some degree of functional differentation, or what Katz et al. (1973) called a division of labor.
Functional Differentiation. The terms diffuse and specific have been used to describe the range of functional differentiation or division of labor among media in need gratifications. Population ecology describes the same phenomena with the terms generalist and specialist, referring to the niche breadth of organizational forms.
Media that satisfy a broad range of need gratifications have been termed diffuse, while specialized media are those which satisfy only a narrow range of need gratifications (Katz et al., 1973; Kippax &
Murray, 1980; Weaver, Wilhoit & deBock, 1980). Conducted in differing cultures (Israel, Australia, Netherlands and United States) these studies reached substantially the same conclusion. Newspapers were more specialized for information need gratifications, while television satisfies a more diffuse set of entertainment and information needs.
Similar findings persist in studies of media content and programs such as daytime radio serials (Herzog, 1944), "60 Minutes" (Rubin, 1981), 26
"Roots" (Hur & Robinson, 1981) and televised presidential debates
(McLeod et al., 1982).
Functional Alternatives. The notion of functional alternatives is another consistent finding in uses and gratifications studies and refers to the functional similarity or overlap in serving the same set of need gratifications. Conceptually, the uses and gratifications concept of functional alternatives shares the same conceptual heritage of the ecological concept of niche overlap, which refers to the amount of similarity between two organizational forms.
However, uses and gratifications researchers infrequently approach the question of functional alternatives on a dimensional basis. Average correlations between all gratifications items suggested that television and radio were substitutable (Katz et al.,
1973; Kippax and Murray, 1980), radio and newspapers (Adoni, 1979).
Television and newspapers were similar in need gratifications computed for single items (Weaver et al., 1980). Lometti et al. (1977) use multidimensional scaling and Lichenstein and Rosenfeld (1984) used multiple discriminant analysis and reached similar conclusions that print media served similar informational gratifications, while electronic media were alternative sources of entertainment gratifications.
Functional equivalence has also been linked with the notion of media competition to satisfy audience needs (Becker, Dunwoody &
Rafaeli , 1983), and the displacement effects of television over other activities among children (Brown, Cramond & Wilde, 1974; Himmelweit, Oppenheim & Vince, 1958). Differences in need gratifications from competing news programs has been found to predict program choice
(Palmgreen et al., 1981; Rayburn et al., 1984). While these studies link gratifications to choices of individuals from among media alternatives, they do not address the question: How does the social environment support a diverse set of media alternatives?
Niche Theory and Media Gratifications. When ecological theory is combined with the uses and gratifications perspective, ecological concepts permit quantification of the relative superiorities among the media in serving the needs of their audiences. Niche dimensionality can be defined by the factors underlying the gratifications sought from the media or particular content, and niche breadth and niche overlap provide descriptors of the diversity and similarity in gratifications obtained. To this end, Dimmick, Dobos and Lin (1985) studied the competition between newspaper, radio, broadcast and cable television to satisfy audience needs for general news. Gratifications sought from news media in general were conceptualized as the pool of resources in the environment, which these media compete to satisfy.
Factor analysis elicited a two dimensional cognitive-affective need structure underlying the gratifications sought items, originally hypothesized along five dimensions derived from the literature.
Directional and magnitude measures of competitive superiority of one medium over another were calculated from responses to the gratifications obtained items for each dimension. A significant correlated t-test indicated superiority, while a non-significant 28
result indicated the two media were equivalent, i.e., no differences in need gratifcations from either medium.
With the exception of the cable comparisons with newspapers and television on the cognitive dimension, consistent results obtained for both measures of direction and magnitude for ten of twelve comparisons. For cognitive and affective gratifications, newspapers, broadcast and cable television were superior to radio. Newspapers and cable were superior to broadcast television for cognitive gratifications, but equivalent for affective gratificaions. The lack of consistency between the two superiority measures was disturbing, since it involved cable, the newest competitor for general news. The absence of affective superiority for television over newspapers was also surprising, since previous studies had indicated television satisfied such needs. More troubling was the disparity between the two factor solution and previous studies. A subsequent study confirmed a two factor cognitive-affective structure to gratifications sought from news in general, and the superiority measures gave more consistent results due to higher reliabities. From this ecological study of competition among the general news media, we can turn to questions about more specialized media content such as business news.
In summary, the managerial audience, as a social collectivity, has a shared symbol sphere and set of information needs relative to fulfilling their organizational role as information processing decision-makers. A diverse set of general news media, business and trade press publications provide one external source of business news 29
and information. Systems concepts and properties provide an conceptual framework for the study of media organizations and audiences in their social environment.
As a systems model, population ecology is concerned with the sustenance relations between the population of organizational forms and a set(s) of resources, as well as the competitive relations among the forms in the population. The resource factors define niche dimensionality. Niche breadth describes the ecological differentiation in resource utilization on each dimension, while niche overlap designates the amount of ecological similarity between two organizational forms. Similar concepts of functional differentiation and functional similarity have appeared in uses and gratifications research. The current study combines population ecology with the uses and gratifications approach, and focuses on the competition among the general news media and the specialized business media to provide gratifications sought by managers.
Overview of Subsequent Chapters
Chapter II will examine the qualitative and quantitative methods for determining the niche dimensionality of gratifications sought, the operational definitions of niche breadth, niche overlap and competitive superiority. Chapter III will report the niche dimensionality results, which showed two dimensions of managerial gratifications related to information needs about the "macro" or external business environment and the "micro" or operating environment of the firm. Chapter IV will review the findings pertaining to niche 30
breadth and overlap for the macro and micro dimensions for the total managerial sample and subgroup classifications. Chapter V will give the results of the pairwise comparisons of media superiorities and the associated power analysis for the macro and micro dimensions. Chapter
VI will summarize and discuss the findings, the limitations of the study, theoretical and practical implications of the findings and suggest future areas for research. CHAPTER II
METHODS
As discussed in Chapter I, the current study was prompted by the need to describe and explain how the social environment supports a diverse population of media organizations. Previous research merging the uses and gratifications perspective with ecological theory reported the patterns of relative superiority and functional equivalence among four general news media (Dimmick et al., 1985). By focusing on a particular type of content and the managerial social collectivity, the current study sought to examine the relative competitive superiority among both generalist and specialist media in satisfying managerial needs for business news and information. To accomplish this objective, the study addressed the following research q u e s t i o n s :
1. What are the information needs of managerial consumers of business news and information services? Do these media expectations differ by managerial levels, type of business or industry, or by size of company?
2. What are the underlying dimensions of these needs? How many dimensions are there? Is the dimensional structure stable across
31 32
managerial levels, type of business or industry, or by size of company?
3. Which media are more broad niched in satisfying these needs?
Which media serve a broad range of these needs? Which media provide a narrow range of gratifications?
A. Which media serve similar sets of needs and what is the degree of overlap, i.e., the intensity of media competition or substitutability among media with generalist and specialist business news domains?
5. Which media are competitively superior and which serve as functional alternatives or substitutes for each other?
Overview of Research Methods
The research strategy included qualitative and quantitative survey research methods. Each of the following will be discussed in detail in later sections. First, a random probability sample of managers was drawn from Franklin County. Second, a pilot study used open-ended questions to ascertain managerial needs for business news and information. Qualitative analysis of these preliminary interviews identified gratifications sought questionnaire items for the main study. Third, the main study questionnaire was designed, pretested and administered to three hundred fifty-one managers in cable households. Finally, quantitative data analysis included reliability and validity assessments, and descriptive and inferential statistical tests of univariate and multivariate procedures. Factor analysis was used to determine the dimensional structure of managerial gratifications sought and received. Niche breadth and niche overlap
measures were calculated to determine the ecological diversity and
similarity in need gratifications among the media. Relative
superiority or functional equivalence was determined by pairwise media
comparisons of gratifications obtained across dimensions. In the
sections to follow, this chapter will elaborate on each of these four
stages: (1) sampling method, (2) pilot study and results, (3) survey
design and administration and (A) quantitative data analysis,
reliability and validity procedures.
Sampling Method
Three considerations guided the choice of sampling method and
sample selection: the definition of the population, representativeness
and adequacy. First, the population to be sampled was defined as
managers in cable television households in Franklin County. Sampling
business organizations would have required stratification into types
of business, then screening for different managerial levels. Sampling
households for managers provided a viable alternative, and should
capture managers at different levels and in different types of
business. Since cable is a new competitor among media organizations offering business news, not yet widely diffused, cable households were
necessary to ensure adequate cell sizes for pairwise media
comparisons. Second, a probability sampling technique was necessary
to insure representativeness, such that each element in the managerial population had an equal and/or known chance of being selected into the
sample. Third, to insure adequacy and minimize sample error, a sample 34
size of at least 100 for the pilot and 400 for the main study was needed, i.e., a total sample size of 500.
With these criteria in mind, a systematic probability method was selected. The computerized sampling procedure selected five-xligit telephone exchange-sterns from those assigned by the local telephone company and a set of randomly generated two-digit suffixes for each stem. The latter technique, known as random digit dialing or more accurately, added digit dialing, is used in order to reach unlisted phones. Each stem and set of random digits is called a cluster, and the size of the cluster is determined by proportional estimates of sample attributes and cooperation rates. In other words, some estimates were necessary to determine the number of call attempts needed to reach an eligible respondent. Most telephone surveys incorporate a cooperation rate, drawing a sample base of three to five times larger than the desired sample size to allow for "no answers", busy signals and initial refusals.
Defining the population as mangers in cable households required proportional estimates of the size of the managerial population and the amount of cable penetration in Franklin County. Census data indicated a managerial population of 12% in Franklin County, and cable penetration was approximately 50%. Coupled with the cooperation rate, these factors suggested an estimated 60 calls would be necessary to reach a qualified respondent. Thus, a sample of 30,000 telephone numbers was assembled into 500 clusters containing 60 numbers each. A random subsample of 100 clusters was used for the pilot survey, and 35
the remaining 400 clusters for the main study.
Thus, a sample base of 30,000 telephone numbers was designed to capture a representative and adequate sample of managers in cable households. Two screen questions were then used to select an eligible respondent from each cluster of 60 phone numbers. Interviewers asked if the household subscribed to cable television, then asked to speak to someone "who works in a management position". In dual managerial households the female manager was interviewed. If the potential respondent had any difficulty, interviewers were instructed to define managers as individuals with responsibility for supervision or administration of a business activity conducted outside the home.
Implementation of the sampling method required strict adherence to the following procedure. As soon as a cluster yielded a completed interview, the rest of the numbers in the cluster were "retired". The sampling method was designed to yield one completion per cluster and continued use of numbers from the same cluster would result in over-representation of that cluster stem in the sample.
Having constructed a sample base of 500 clusters, a subsample of
100 clusters was randomly selected for the pilot study. The next section will discuss the research design, administration and results of the pilot study.
Pilot Study
As a precusor to the main study, the purpose of the pilot study was twofold: (1) to identify a set of managerial needs for business news and information and (2) to determine the feasibility of reaching 36
qualified respondents. From the set of needs identified in the pilot study, gratifications sought and obtained questionnaire items could be written for the main survey. The pilot study also provided an opportunity to test the efficacy of the sampling procedures, i.e., whether the estimated cluster size of 60 telephone numbers would yield one completed interview.
Pi lot Design and Administration. To accomplish the first objective, the pilot study adopted a qualitative approach to delineating managerial needs for information from their own accounts and interpretations (Christians & Carey, 1981). As discussed in
Chapter I, the literature suggests that managers employ various scanning strategies to gather information from the external environment (Harris, 1981; Sammon et al., 1984; Thomas, 1984). The current study, however, required identification of the managerial information needs which prompt these scanning strategies. Instead of drafting a set of researcher imposed items with the prospect of omitting relevant needs, the pilot study was designed as an open-ended telephone interview and asked managers themselves to identify their needs for business news and information.
Two primary considerations affected the design, pretesting and administration of the pilot study: the difficulty of the task and the nature of the respondents. Since managerial media expectations of business news content are believed to be socially learned over time
(Blumler, 1979), respondents may experience some difficulty articulating the reasons they use the media for business news. As 37
busy people, managers might be less willing to participate in telephone surveys, and the interview must be carefully designed to engage their commitment.
As a result, the pilot questionnaire design incorporated an approach to improving respondent commitment and accuracy tested experimentally by Miller and Cannell (1977), and used successfully in a study of uses and gratifications derived from news in general
(Dimmick et al., 1985). Since respondent recall and accuracy may be affected by salience and social desirability of the phenomena to be reported, Miller and Cannell reasoned that respondents must be instructed to take their time and think carefully before answering.
To help respondents understand that specificity and completeness are important, interviewers should use probe questions to ask respondents to think again and try to recall any other details pertaining to the question topic, until the desired specificity and completeness are a t t ained.
Finally, interviewers should be instructed to use pauses and neutral reinforcer statements such as "I see" or "uh huh" to encourage respondents to take their time and think carefully. Positive reinforcer statements such as "This is really going very well" or "We really appreciate your cooperation" should only be used when the respondent has provided sufficiently detailed answers. The results of their study showed more detailed recall and accuracy in reports of media behaviors when interviews were conducted with these instructions. When the research strategy requires accurate recall 38
Miller and Cannell (1977) concluded, respondents must perceive the interview task as highly important and involving, with reinforcement or rewards contingent upon respondent effort and successful task completion.
Following the Miller and Cannell approach required careful attention to designing and pretesting the pilot instrument and administration by experienced and well-trained interviewers.
Accordingly, the pilot questionnaire was drafted and ten students with previous telephone interviewing experience received instruction in the logic of the Miller and Cannell approach and training with the instrument. A pretest indicated that managerial respondents were able to quickly understand their interviewee responsibilities and the introductory explanation to one section was shortened. (See Appendix
A for the revised pilot instrument.)
The pilot questionnaire contained four sections. After a brief description of the purpose and auspices of the study, the screen questions identified an eligible respondent as a cable subscriber who works in a management position. Respondents were first asked, "which media do you usually use to get your business news and information?" followed by a probe to elicit "anything else?" Respondents were then asked to take their time, think carefully and try to recall the specific programs, channels and stories that they used at home or in the office to get business news. After a five second pause to give respondents time to think, the question was repeated and followed by a probe inquiring if there were any other programs, channels or stories. 39
Neutral reinforcers were used throughout the interchange and a positive reinforcer was used at the end of this task.
The same format was used in subsequent sections of the pilot interview: introduction of the task, pause, redirect the question, a probe question, and neutral reinforcers until task completion when a positive reinforcer was used. The recall of specific programs and stories in Section 1 provided a referent for the second section in which respondents were asked to describe the needs they have that are satisfied by the stories and programs mentioned in the first section.
If the respondent described his/her needs in vague or general terms, the interviewer used the optional Section 3 to elicit specificity and completeness. The fourth section provided respondents an opportunity to mention any other needs they might have that are not currently being met by the media they use for business news. This section was intended to cover the possibility that an individual manager might share a need mentioned by other managers, but not recall or associate that need with the stories or programs in the media s/he used.
To accomplish the second objective of the pilot study, procedures were adopted to determine if the cooperation and completion rates were within acceptable limits. Interviewers were trained to record the disposition of each call attempt. From these records tabulations were made of initial refusals per cluster and the average number of call attempts per completed interview.
Pilot Results. Ninety-three pilot interviews provided a total of 367 specific statements of managerial needs for business news and AO
information. Each need statement was written on a separate index card and four coders independently sorted the cards into conceptual categories. Coders were instructed to first sort the cards into as many topics as necessary, then combine similar topics into conceptually similar categories and affix a conceptual label to each card set.
Table 1 summarizes the conceptual labels used by the four coders and shows general agreement across seventeen categories. All four coders used the following nine categories: legal/political/regulation, financial, technology, competition, new products available from suppliers, new markets and customers, product improvement through surveillance of industry trends, managerial styles and techniques, and business travel and entertainment. Two coders divided the large financial category into four sub-categories: financial trends in stocks, bonds and the money market, financial trends in taxes and interest rates, trends in economic indicators, and mergers and acquisitions. Three coders used categories of local, national and international news while the fourth coder used an umbrella category of general business news. Three coders identified need categories of decision-making and coworker communication.
Based on general agreement across these categories, sixteen items were written for the main questionnaire to operationalize gratifications sought (GS) from business news and information. With only three mentions the travel and entertainment category was dropped. Al
Table 1
Pi lot Study Categories of Managerial Information Needs
Coder A_ Coder B Coder C Coder D
Local General News Local Local
National National National
International International International
Regulation Legal Law Politics Polltical Political Regulation Legal
FInancial Stocks Stocks Financial
Interest Interest Rates Rates
Economic Economic Trends Trends
Mergers and Success and Acqui si tion Failures
Technology Technology Technology Technology
Competition Competition Competi tion Competition
Suppliers Suppliers New Products New Products
Markets Customers Customers Customers
Improve Own Getting the Business Industry Product Edge Specific Surveillance
Management Management Management Management Techniques Techniques Styles Techniques
Decisions Decisions Decisions
Interpersonal Social Company Communication
Travel Travel Travel Travel Entertainment Entertainment Entertainment Entertainment 42
Table 2 displays the sixteen Items as they were conceptualized along four dimensions of the business environment: (1) the general environment including surveillance of local, national and international business events; (2) the macro environment consisting of legal/political and regulatory, financial, economic and technological sectors; (3) the industry environment composed of competitors, customers, suppliers, mergers and acquisitions; and (4) the internal environment of a firm including managerial styles, information dissemination, problem solving and decision-making. Table 3 shows the same sixteen items in a different conceptual configuration, hypothesized to reflect two managerial cognitive styles — intuitive and analytic — which have been associated with managerial information processing and decision-making (Agor, 1985; Isenberg, 1984; Mintzberg,
1976; Rowe et al., 1984). As noted in Chapter I, the intuitive style relies on the ability to "see the big picture" or the whole problem rather than its component parts. The analytic style relies on the ability to assemble, interpret and evaluate disaggregated data and facts. Thus, the "intuitive" style focuses on insight and inspiration, and the "analytic" style on comparison and evaluation of information.
With the diversity of media offering business news, the pilot study also needed to ascertain managerial patterns of media use. Two extremes were of particular importance for the main survey. Since respondents would be asked how well each medium they used satisfied each of the sixteen need statements, the survey would become too Table 2
GS Hypothesized Environmental Dimensions
(GENERAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT)
I use business news and information in my work... 1. to keep up with trends in the local business community.
2. to keep up with national business trends.
3. to keep up with international business trends.
(MACRO ENVIRONMENT)
I use business news and information in my work... 1. to keep up with actions of courts, legislators or regulators
2. to keep up with economic trends in the GNP, growth indexes, unemployment or inflation.
3. to keep up with financial trends in taxes and interest rates
4. to keep up with trends in stocks, bonds, or the money market
5. to keep up with trends in new technology.
(INDUSTRY ENVIRONMENT)
I use business news and information in my work... 1. to evaluate opportunities for new markets, customers, or c lie n t s .
2. to analyze competitor's strategies.
3. to compare prices and suppliers of products or services.
4. to assess the impact of mergers and acquisitions.
(FIRM'S INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT)
I use business news and information in my work... 1. to get ideas to pass along to other people in your company.
2. to learn about new managerial styles.
3. to get ideas to improve products or services.
4. to find new ideas to help solve a problem or make a decision 44
Table 3
GS Hypothesized Cognitive Style Dimensions
(INTUITIVE)
I use business news and information in my work...
1. to keep up with trends in the local business community.
2. to keep up with national business trends.
3. to keep up with international business trends.
4. to get ideas to pass along to other people in your company.
5. to learn about new managerial styles.
6. to get ideas to improve products or services.
7. to find new ideas to help solve a problem or make a decision.
(ANALYTIC)
I use business news and information in my work...
1. to keep up with actions of courts, legislators or regulators.
2. to keep up with economic trends in the GNP, growth indexes, unemployment, or inflation.
3. to keep up with financial trends in taxes or interest rates.
4. to keep up with trends in stocks, bonds or the money market.
5. to keep up with trends in new technology.
6. to evaluate opportunities for new markets, customers, or clients
7. to analyze competitor's strategies.
8. to compare prices and suppliers of products or services.
9. to assess the impact of mergers and acquisitions. 45
lengthy if a respondent used more than five mediums. On the other
hand, data analysis of pairwise comparisons would require that a
respondent use at least two mediums.
Table 4 displays the tabulation of media use by pilot
respondents. Slightly over 3% used six mediums, which indicated
length would be only a minor problem in the main survey. Nearly 12%
only used one medium, which meant approximately 48 out of the sample
of 400 would be ineligible for the main survey, but still achieve an
acceptable sample of 352. When interviewers encountered these
ineligible respondents in the main survey, however, they would be
instructed to continue through the cluster.
General news media such as newspapers, broadcast and cable
television were used by over half the respondents. Nearly 30%
reported reading news magazines, but only a small fraction viewed public television or listened to radio for business news. Among the
specialist media slightly over one-fourth read the Wall Street
Journal and close to 40% read a business periodical or trade press publication. Despite the proliferation of services such as Dow Jones
News Retrieval in the business community, none of the respondents reported use of these specialized information services. While this finding may indicate that few managers use these services, the pilot instrument had not referred to these services as computerized.
Results of monitoring the sampling procedure indicated no eligible respondent in 7% of the clusters. Ninety-three clusters yielded an eligible respondent who completed the survey. Seven of the 46
Table 4
Pilot Study Number and Types of Media Use
Number of Mediums Used
diums N %
6 3 3.2 5 10 10.8 4 21 22.6 3 21 22.6 2 26 28.0 1 11 11.8
Types of Generalist Media Use
Medium N %
Newspaper 66 80.0 Cable TV 58 62.4 Television 49 52.7 Magazine 27 29.0 Radio 12 12.9 Public TV 15 16.1
Types of Specialist Media Use
Medium N %
Wall Street Journal 25 26.9 Periodicals & Trades 36 38.7 Online Services 0 0.0 47
clusters failed to yield a completed pilot interview, which indicated perhaps 28 of the 400 clusters for the main survey would not yield a completion. The mean number of calls per completed interview was 32, and on average there was one initial refusal per cluster. The sex ratio was 39.8% female and 60.2% male.
On balance the sampling procedures were satisfactory, but the 12% of managers who only used one medium presented a problem. Sample size could be reduced to 324 eligible resondents, when the potential loss of 28 clusters was coupled with these 48 clusters. To alleviate this problem, an additional set of two-digit random numbers was generated.
Only when a cluster failed to yield a completion after four attempts to reach each number, these two-digit numbers could be added to the cluster without disturbing the sample base of 500 cluster stems.
Main Study
This section will review the questionnaire design, pretesting and administration of the main study. Questionnaire construction followed a closed-ended highly structured format and contained four sections:
(1) introductory screening and media use, (2) gratifications sought,
(3) gratifications obtained, and (4) classification variables. After pretesting (N=21) the questionnaire, the gratifications obtained questions were reformatted. The survey was administered during the first two weeks of May 1985 by 80 trained interviewers. (See Appendix
B for the final draft of the main survey.)
Questionnaire Design. The introductory section of the questionnaire contained the same screen questions used in the pilot 48
study to identify managers in cable households. Respondents were then
asked which media they used "either at home or in the office to get
business news and information". Since data analysis required pairwise
media comparisons, the interview was terminated at this point if the
respondent used only one medium.
If the respondent used at least two media, the interview protocol
described the next section as concerned with "your general reasons or
expectations for using business news and information in your work".
This section contained the sixteen gratification sought question items
in closed-ended form, and item were randomly rotated. Respondents
were asked if each statement or reason for using business news applied
to them "a lot, somewhat, only a little or not at all".
The third section consisted of the gratifications obtained question items. Respondents were reminded of the media they said they used and the same sixteen questions were repeated. Instead of asking how much etch reason applied to the respondent, however, the the questions asked how helpful each medium was in providing that type of news or information: a lot, somewhat, only a little or not at all h e l p f u l .
The final section included classification variables and an internal validity check item for use in the data analysis. The classification items ascertained the respondent's managerial level, number of employees as an indicator of size of company, and type of business or industry. Another forced choice question asked respondents, "Now...Tomorrow, if for some reason you could only use 49
one source for business news and iformation, which source would you select"? This item will be used as an internal validity check and cross-tabulated against gratifications obtained.
Pretesting and Administration. The questionnaire was pretested to identify: (1) the expected length of the interview, (2) any problems with survey administration and (3) whether the range of response categories was appropriate. Thus, the pretest provided an opportunity to make modifications in the final survey instrument.
After training with the instrument, six of the pilot interviewers administered the pretest and recorded the interview length.
Respondents (N=21) were drawn from the unused numbers in the 100 pilot telephone clusters.
Interviewer debriefing and analysis of the pretest suggested several modifications to the final draft of the questionnaire. First, the interviews ranged from sixteen to twenty minutes, primarily because the iterative format of the gratifications obtained questions slowed Interviewers down. As a result, these items were reformatted into checklists, but the expected length given in the introduction remained at 15 minutes. Secondly, the pretest provided only one response category for recording gratifications obtained from business periodicals and trade press publications, and respondents who used both rated them differently. Consequently, the final draft provided separate items for business magazines and trade press in the media use section and the gratifications obtained section of the questionnaire.
No other problems were encountered in the pretest and the final draft 50
of the survey was prepared.
- Eighty members of an upper division mass media research course
administered the survey as part of their course requirement during the
first two weeks of May 1985. Interviewing was supervised and
interviewer training spanned three sessions. The sessions covered:
(1) the logic and importance of following the sampling procedures, (2)
the results of the pilot study and the expected cooperation and
completion rates, and (3) intensive training with the instrument
i t s e l f .
As discussed in the sampling section in this chapter, the expected problem with ineligible respondents resulted in 337 completed
interviews when the 400 clusters were exhausted. For purposes of the study the total sample size was actually less important than the cell
sizes for pairwise media comparisons. In order to compute the
relative superiority of one medium over another in satisfying managerial needs for business news, only those respondents who used both media can be entered into such a planned comparison. Tallies kept by supervisors during the interviewing showed that twelve pairwise comparisons would have cell sizes ranging from 35 to 100. As a result, additional sets of randomly generated two-digit numbers were affixed to the stems in the unproductive 63 clusters and yielded a final sample size of 351 with cell sizes ranging from 39 to 110 for
fifteen pairwise media comparisons between six media: newspaper, news magazines, broadcast television, cable television, Wall Street
Journal and the trade press. Cell sizes were too low to permit 51
comparisons with the local business newspaper, radio, public television, business magazines (e.g. Fortune ) and computerized information services and these media were deleted from the analysis.
The next section will stipulate the operational definitions and quantitative data analysis procedures used in the main study.
Quantitative Data Analysis
To determine the relative superiority of one medium over another in satisfying mangerial needs for business news and information, the current study combined the uses and gratifications approach with population ecology. To this end, measures of gratifications sought and gratifications obtained were used to construct formulations of population ecology concepts of niche dimensionality, niche breadth, niche overlap and relative competitive superiority. Data analysis included the following procedures: (1) factor analysis to determine the underlying need dimensions of gratifications sought and obtained,
(2) calculation of niche breadth, niche overlap and superiority measures for each need dimension and (3) reliability and validity estimates. Then, the data analysis strategy repeated these procedures for managerial levels, size of company and type of industry breakdowns.
Conceptual Definitions. As discussed in Chapter I, population ecology posits a population of organizations competing for the available pool of resources in order to survive. Selection may be a matter of dimensional superiority of one medium over another competitor (Aldrich, 1979). Niche breadth refers to the diversity of 52
resource utilization, while niche overlap indicates the amount of
similarity among two competitors, i.e., the degree of shared use of
the resource space (Hannan and Freeman, 1977). The current study
focused on the managerial collectivity in the social environment of
the population of media organizations offering business news and
information.
When the uses and gratifications perspective is combined with the
population ecology model, the managerial gratifications sought and
obtained from business news define the resource space and resource
utilization by media organizations. Measures of gratifications sought
as indicators of these managerial needs for business news and
information define the pool of resources available to media
organizations offering business news and information. Measures of gratifications obtained as indicators of a medium's helpfulness in
satisfying these needs define a medium's ability to utilize the available resource pool. Thus, media organizations offering business news face a social environment with a resource space composed of the needs for business news and information of the managerial collectivity, defined by their gratifications sought dimensions. The managerial gratifications obtained from each medium can be used to delineate the pattern of resource utilization or the ecological organization among competitors in the resource space.
From these considerations, measures of niche breadth, niche overlap and competitive superiority can be constructed from gratifications obtained (Dimmick, 1985). 53
Operational Measures. The underlying need dimensions that
emerge from factor analysis of the sixteen gratifications sought items
will define niche dimensionality and niche breadth and overlap can be
calculated for each dimension. Bioecology formulations (e.g., Levins,
1968) could not be straightforwardly applied, however, because they
are based on proportional utilization of resource categories.
Extending the theory of the niche to audience gratifications required
redefinition of breadth and overlap to accomodate interval level
measurement scales (Dimmick, 1985). Two measures of relative
competitive superiority Sd (direction) and Sm (magnitude) were also
constructed from respondent's ratings of gratifications obtained items
(Dimmick, 1985). The breadth, overlap and superiority measures are
all defined as arithmetic means, computed first at the disaggregated
level and appear in Figures 1 and 2.
The breadth measure is a ratio of niche occupancy on a dimension
to the available space on the dimension of gratification obtained
items. As depicted in Figure 1 niche breadth was operationally defined as the ratio of the GO sum, corrected for by the number of
scale items on the dimension, to the number of scale items times the difference between the lower and upper bounds of the scale. Its lower
bound reaches zero, when all respondents rate all scale items at the
lower bound of the GO scales. Its upper bound reaches one, when all
respondents rate the medium at the upper bound on all GO scales on a dim e n s i o n . (1) NICHE BREADTH
W h e r e : u,l = the upper and lower bounds of a scale (e.g. 4 and 1) GO = a gratification obtained rating on a scale N = the number of respondents using a medium n = the first respondent K = the number of scales on a dimension k = the first gratification scale
(2) NICHE OVERLAP
GOGO K=1
N
W h e r e : i,j = medium i and medium j GO = a gratification obtained rating on a scale for i and j N = the number of respondents who use both i and j n = the first respondent
Figure 1. Formulas for Niche Breadth and Niche Overlap.
Note. From "Formulas for computation of niche breadth, niche overlap, and competitive superiority using gratification measures" John Dimmick, 1985. 55
(3) SUPERIORITY Sd i>j N K Sd - 'z I ( . 'j i>j n*=l k=l v i>.1 N
(A) SUPERIORITY Sd j>i N K , Sd £ ( d ) j>i n=l k=l x ,1>1 N
(5) SUPERIORITY Sm i>j N K ,
s" i>j -Z ne l ____ Z(-k=l * i>j ) N
(6) SUPERIORITY Sm j>i N K Sm = ^>~ 3*“ (m 'j j >i n=l____ k=~l j>i N
W h e r e : i,j = mediums i and j d = the number of gratification scale items on which a i>1 respondent rates i>j d = the number of gratification scale items on which a j>i respondent rates j>i m = the value of a respondent's rating for those scale i>j items on which i is rated greater than j (the sum of the actual v a l u e s ) m = the value of a respondent's rating for those scale j>i items on which j is rated greater than i (the sum of the actual v a l u e s ) K = the number of scales on a dimension k = the first gratification scale N = the number of respondents who use both i and j n = the first respondent
Figure 2. Formulas for Sd and Sm Superiority.
Note. From "Measures of Competitive Superiority for Communication Media, Products and Services". Copyright 1985 by John Dimmick. Used with permission. 56
The overlap measure represents the amount of common occupancy of
the resource space on a dimension of gratification obtained items.
Niche overlap was defined mathematically as the root mean square of
the sum of the differences between GO ratings for each item on a
dimension. When both media in a pairwise comparison are rated equally
on all scales on a dimension, the niche overlap measure will equal
zero, indicating similarity in need gratification and some degree of
competition. The overlap measure can reach zero in disparate cases,
i.e., when both media are rated equally at the lower end of the GO
scales or at the upper bound of the scales. To determine where the
similarity lies, the GO grand mean will also be given along with the
overlap measures for each media pair. If one medium is rated at the
upper bound of all GO scales, while the other medium is rated at the
lower bound, the overlap will achieve a value of three (the maximum
difference between GO scale values, because four point scales were
used in the current study).
The Sd (direction) measure was defined simply as the sum of the
number of GO scale items on which a respondent rated one medium higher
than the other medium. Sm (magnitude) was defined as the sum of the
GO scale values on which a respondent rated one medium higher than the
other medium. Thus, the Sd and Sm measures omit any items which were
rated equally and retain only those GO items on which one medium is
rated higher than the other. Sd and Sm were calculated both for medium i>medium j and medium j>medium i to determine whether the direction and magnitude of superiority favors medium i or j . 57
Pairwise Comparisons. While the breadth and overlap measures are descriptive, the superiority measures can be tested for significance using a t-test for correlated group means. Two-tailed tests were used, because direction of superiority could not be specified a priori. A significant result indicated that one medium was superior to the other and a non-significant result that neither medium was superior, i.e., that the two media were functionally equivalent. Intuitively, both Sd and Sm should yield consistent results, but under certain conditions this may not be the case. For example, when one medium is superior to another on the same number of
GO scale items, a non-significant difference may obtain for the Sd measure. At the same time, the GO ratings for one medium can be at higher scale points than for the other, and Sm may show a significant difference in superiority.
Since both rejection and nonrejection of the null hypothesis of no difference between the group means are theoretically and practically Important, statistical power analysis can be applied to significance tests (Cohen, 1969; Chase & Tucker, 1975). Beyond planning for power and sample size Cohen (1969, p. 4) writes, "the power of a statistical test of a null hypothesis is the probability that it will lead to the rejection of the null hypothesis,i.e., the probability that it will lead to the conclusion that the phenomena exists". Power is a function of the effect size, sample/cell size and the significance level. Power increases with increasing effect size and sample size, but decreases with increasingly stringent 58
significance levels. For non-directional t-tests the effect size is
computed as the absolute difference between means divided by their
standard deviation. Conventionally, .2 is a small effect, .5 a medium
effect and .8 a large effect. Moreover, power is related to the
directionality of a significance test and two-tailed tests require
twice the power to reject the null.
Managerial Subgroups. As discussed in Chapter I, managers at
different levels may differ in their needs for business news and
information. Similarly, managers in small companies or service
industries may have different sets of needs than managers in large
companies or non-service industries. Moreover, some variation may
exist in the relative superiority among the generalist and specialist media in satisfying the needs of managers at different levels, in
small companies or service industries. Thus, the preceding steps in
the data analysis were repeated for sample breakdowns by managerial
levels, size of company and type of business.
Operational definitions for the classification variables were drawn from standard sources. The definition of small and large business came from government reports (The State of Small Business,
1984), mangerial levels from The American Management Association
(Heyel, 1972) and the definition of service industries from a standard business reference text (Greenwald, 1983). Top managers included sole proprietors, partnerships, and corporate officers such as chairman, president, vice-presidents and general managers. Middle managers were defined as those responsible for operating divisions or departments, 59
while firstline managers supervise the work of rank-and-file emp l o y e e s .
Small businesses are those with 100 or fewer employees. Small businesses comprise over 95% of all business establishments, and employed 34% of the workforce in 1982. Service industries are those engaged in the production of some intangible good. Non-service industries produce some tangible good and include agriculture, mining, construction and manufacturing. Service industries provide services to other firms or directly to consumers. Service industries encompass the following: retail and wholesale trade, transportation, utilities and communication, finance, insurance and real estate, personal, professional and business services. Thus, the data analysis was repeated for breakdowns by: (1) three managerial levels (2) small versus large businesses and (3) service versus non-service industries.
Reliability and Validity. Alpha coefficients (Cronbach, 1951) for interitem reliability were calculated for each dimension for all
GS and GO factor solutions. The alpha coefficient gives the proportion of the total variance in the dimension that is a function of the variation in the individual items. An alpha of 1.00 indicates that the sum of the individual variances of each item equals the total variance in the dimension.
Internal validity is the extent to which the explanation of the results can be attributed to the measurements and procedures used in the study. The uses and gratifications perspective would predict that a respondent's choice of a preferred medium for business news and 60
information would be rated higher in gratifications obtained than the other media a respondent used. In other words, is the GO rating for the preferred medium higher or lower than GO ratings for other media used by the respondent? Accordingly, a chi square comparison will be used as an internal validity check.
In summary, telephone survey research methodology and sampling procedures were used in the pilot study and main survey. The pilot study used an open-ended qualitative approach to elicit managers own interpretations of their needs for business news and information and incorporated interviewing techniques to aid recall specificity and completeness. The main study used a closed-ended structured format and gratifications sought and obtained questions were written based on the results of the pilot study. The main survey yielded 351 managers in cable households who reported using at least two media. Data analysis consisted of four procedures, which were repeated for managerial levels, size of company and type of business. Factor analysis identified the underlying niche dimensions, while niche breadth and niche overlap measures described the functional diversity and similarity among media competitors and Sd and Sm superiority measures indicated which medium was the more successful competitor.
Finally, reliability and validity estimates were conducted. Next,
Chapter III will report the niche dimensionality results, which showed two factors of managerial gratifications related to information needs about the "macro" or external business environment and the "micro" or operating environment of a firm. CHAPTER III
RESULTS: NICHE DIMENSIONALITY
This chapter is the first step toward elucidating the ecological pattern among the population of media organizations competing to satisfy managerial needs for business news and information. Since managerial gratifications sought were conceptualized as the resource space available to the population of media organizations, this chapter will report the results of the study which bear on niche dimensionality in the resource space. Subsequent chapters will consider the niche breadths, niche overlaps and relative superiorities among the general news media and specialized business and trade press.
Introduction
As discussed in Chapter I, managers may have different sets or subsets of information needs and these gratifications sought may differ by managerial levels, size of company and type of business or industry. Functional equivalence and differentiation may occur as the print and electronic media with generalist and specialist domains provide similar or different sets or subsets of managerial gratifications obtained. When the uses and gratifications approach is combined with population ecology, the dimensional structure of the
61 62 managerial gratifications sought (GS) defines the resource space available to the population of media organizations offering business news content. Moreover, resource partitioning of the gratifications obtained (GO) may differ across dimensions.
Identifying these dimensions provides the foundation for further analysis. Within the multi-dimensional niche, each medium may occupy a broad or narrow niche on different GO dimensions. At the same time, differences in niche overlap may occur as a pair of media serve similar needs on one dimension but different needs on another dimension. Moreover, the extent of overlap provides an index of the intensity of competition and this intensity may differ across dimensions. From these considerations niche dimensionality assumes critical importance and provides the foundation for subsequent analysis. Thus, the first step consisted of confirmatory factor analysis to test the hypothesized GS and GO dimensional structures derived from the pilot study.
GS Confirmatory Factor Analysis
The LISRFL VI maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis showed that the hypothesized four factor GS model of business environments (see Chapter II, Table 2) was at least preferable to the hypothesized two factor GS model of managerial decision styles (see
Chapter II, Table 3). A significant chi square obtained in both cases, which indicated that neither model holds exactly in the population. Rho, a descriptive measure of goodness of fit suggested by Bentler and Bonett (1980) was calculated to compare the relative 63
fit of each model. Rho is a ratio of the chi square improvement of the hypothesized model over the null model (numerator) to the improvement from the null model to the correct model (denominator).
Chi square values for the hypothesized and null models are normalized by their respective degrees of freedom. The null model represents the hypothesis that there are zero factors, or — stated another way — that the measured variables are uncorrelated in the population. If a model were a perfect fit to the data, rho would equal one. Ideally, we would like rho to be at least .90, preferably .95.
Rho was .75 for the environmental model and .52 for the decision style model. A rho of .52 for the managerial decision styles model indicated a poor fit and little likelihood that model modifications might improve rho to the .90 level. On the other hand, a rho of .75 for the business environments model suggested that model modification would be an appropriate strategy. Accordingly, the T-Values and modification indices of the business environment model were examined.
T-Values in the LISREL output represent the LISREL estimates of the free parameters in the model, divided by their standard errors.
Free parameters refer to the specified relationships in the hypothesized model, which included estimates of the interfactor correlations and GS items loadings on their respective factors. These
T-values can be interpreted similar to a t statistic, in that values less than 2.0 indicate that the value of the free parameter is not significantly different from zero. T-Values showed the macro dimension to be uncorrelated with the firm's internal environment. 64
LISREL estimates of the inter-factor correlations also indicated a
high correspondence between the industry and internal environments
(r=.95)and between the general and macro environments (r=.83).
Thus, the model was collapsed to two factors representing needs
for business news and information about the macro and micro business
environments. The macro factor was composed of the general
surveillance and macro environment GS items, while the micro factor
included the firm's industry and internal environment GS items. As a
result of this first model modification and gain in degrees of
freedom, rho was reduced to .71 and T-Values for all free parameters
were significantly different from zero.
Model fitting then proceeded to an examination of the
modification indices provided in the LISREL output for the fixed
parameters in the model. Modification indices represent the minimum
improvement in the chi square if a fixed parameter were a free
parameter. Six of the sixteen GS items had modification indices above
the benchmark of five or six. The highest modification index was 59.8
for the "mergers and acquisitions" GS item, which had been fixed to
zero on the original "macro" factor.
Because a change in only one parameter can change the values of
the other parameters in the model only one change at a time is
recommended, usually by relaxing the parameter with the highest modification index. Furthermore, the researcher should have a
substantive rationale to relax the parameter (Long, 1983). Although
the "mergers" item had been hypothesized to reflect a managerial need 65
for information about the industry environment, a substantive case can be made for wider scanning for this type of information in the macro business environment along with other financial and economic trends.
Accordingly, the model was modified a second time with this item as a free parameter on the macro factor, and rho improved to .78. The new pattern of modification indices suggested freeing the "technology" item on the micro factor. Since the managerial need to keep up with trends in new technology may be focused more narrowly on their own products and processes, such a model modificaton would be warranted substantively. As a result, a third model modification yielded a rho of .80, but four GS items still had high modification indices.
To embark on a further series of model modifications negates the purpose of a confirmatory factor analysis, and would be a "blatantly exploratory approach" (Long, 1983, p. 69). While three substantively justified model modifications obtained a more adequate fit to the data, rho failed to reach an acceptable .90 level. Hence, the confirmatory approach was replaced with an exploratory factor a n a l y s i s .
GS Exploratory Factor Analysis
Table 5 presents the results of a SAS principal axis factor analysis with promax rotation, which yields both orthogonal and oblique solutions. Squared multiple correlations were used as communality estimates. The scree plot of eigenvalues indicated that two factors be retained, which explained 100% of the common variance.
Since the inter-factor correlation was a .24, Table 5 Table 5
Principal Axis Factor Solution for Gratifications Sought
Factor 1 Factor 2
General Environment
Local .38 .29 National .26 .54 International .22 .51
Macro Environment
Legal -.11 .38 Economic .14 .54 Finance-taxes .05 .54 Finance-stocks -.09 .68 New technology .39 .19
Industry Environment
New markets .57 .07 Competitors .59 .01 Suppliers .51 .02 Mergers .30 .48
Firm's Internal Environment
Other people .45 .10 Mgr styles .38 .17 Improve product .68 -.08 Make decision .43 .06
Reliability .74 .74
Common variance explained 100% Interfactor correlation .24 67
gives the loadings for the orthogonal solution. The item loading criteria was .30 with a minimum difference of .15 between factors (Kim and Meuller, 1982). Reliabilities, using Cronbach's alpha were .74 for both factors. Generally, the solution reflects simple structure with a clear subset of items with high loadings on one factor and low loadings on the other factor. Only the local item double loads on both factors, with loadings above .30 and less than a .15 difference between the factor loadings.
Macro and Micro Dimensions
Factor 1 consists of the four items hypothesized to tap the firm's internal environment, three of the four items from the hypothesized industry environmental level, and one item "to keep up with trends in new technology" from the hypothesized macro environmental level. With the highest loading of .68 for "to get ideas to improve products or services", Factor 1 appears to reflect managers needs for business news and information about the firm's overall operational or micro environment, including new markets, competitors and suppliers. In this context, keeping up with trends in new technology can be viewed as related to improving the firm's product or service and the need to respond to customers, competitors and suppliers.
Factor 2 is dominated by four of five items from the hypothesized macro environmental level, and will retain this label. It also includes keeping up with trends in the national and international spheres in the general environment and the mergers item from the 68
industry environmental level. Thus, Factor 2 appears to represent a
general orientation to trends in business conditions external or
outside the firm's operational or micro environment. In this regard,
the need to assess the impact of mergers and acquisitions may be
viewed by managers as another trend to watch, particularly given the
current flurry of such activity in today's economy. Because it double
loads, the local item does not belong clearly to either factor.
Thus, a two dimensional niche of macro and micro managerial
gratifications sought (GS) will be configured as the resource space
available to media organizations offering business news for
consumption by the managerial audience. Niche occupancy will be
demarcated by the ability of each medium to satisfy these dimensional
needs, i.e., the gratifications obtained (GO) from each medium on the
macro and micro dimensional items. Since it does not belong clearly
to either factor, the local item will not be construed as part of the
resource space in the environment of the population of media
organizations.
GO Factor Analysis
In order to calculate niche breadth, niche overlap, and the
relative superiority of one medium over another in satisfying these macro and micro level needs, the next step in the analysis was to confirm whether the GO factor structures were analogous to the GS
factor pattern. Table 6 displays the LISREL estimates for the GO item
loadings on the macro and micro dimensions for newspaper (NP),
television (TV), cable television (CA), general news magazines (MG), 69
Table 6
LISREL Estimates for Gratifications Sought and Obtained
MACRODIMENSION
GS NP TVCA MGWS TP
Local . A 1 .26 .53 .20 .14 .23 .18 National .62 .57 .59 .68 .58 .58 .51 International .56 .70 .68 .70 .56 .61 .51 Legal .31 .40 .39 .57 .47 .30 .40 Economic .55 .69 .54 .72 .76 .69 .83 Finance-taxes .52 .68 .65 .85 .79 .58 .68 Finance-stocks .62 .64 .50 .66 .72 .63 .61 Mergers .55 .62 .58 .74 .69 .40 .60
Reliability .74 .86 .82 .92 .99 .89 .80
MICRO DIMENSION
Markets .57 .59 .63 .65 .57 .49 .55 Competi tors .61 .64 .69 .67 .56 .71 .63 Suppliers .50 .59 .71 .71 .69 .65 .69 New technology .39 .64 .63 .68 .61 .55 .59 Improve product .68 .72 .75 .73 .81 .68 .55 Mgr styles .41 .63 .66 .70 .61 .40 .60 Other people .48 .48 .59 .68 .62 .54 .52 Make decision .43 .66 .72 .76 .60 .60 .55
Reliability .74 .86 .92 .90 .97 .87 .81
Interfactor Correlation .35 .63 .75 .65 .43 .45 .40
N 351 262 158 148 106 152 135 70
Wall Street Journal (WS), and the trade press (TP). The LISREL
estimates for the GS items are also included for comparison of
parallel structures. Omitted from the analysis were radio, public
television, computerized information services and business magazines
such as Fortune , Forbes and Business Week , because the number of
respondents who reported using these media would have reduced the cell
sizes to below 20 for pairwise comparisons of media superiority. As noted in Chapter II, GS items were administered to all respondents and
GO items only to respondents who used each medium. Thus, each GO
solution reflects those who used that medium.
GO reliabilities given in Table 6 exceed the GS reliabilities and the interfactor correlations are appreciably higher for the GO solutions. A similar result obtained in the GS-GO factor solutions for the news study reported by Dimmick, Dobos and Lin (1985).
Although seeking macro level gratifications is weakly related to seeking micro level gratifications, satsifaction of macro needs is accompanied by satisfaction of micro dimension needs particularly from newspapers, broadcast and cable television. Lower GO interfactor correlations suggest this is not the case for magazines, the Wall
Street Journal and trade press.
From Table 6 we may conclude that the GO structures parallel the
GS pattern. In other words, the resource utilization dimensions parallel the dimensions of available resource space. The items loading on the GS macro and micro dimensions also load on their respective GO macro and micro dimensions. Since the local item double 71
loaded on the GS solution, the local item will be deleted from further
a n a l y s i s .
The next step in the analysis was to define niche dimensionality
for the breakdowns by managerial levels, size of company and type of
industry. LISREL VI was used to test the equality of the covariance matrices and factor structures. If the chi square test shows that the subgroups do not differ in the factor structures of their need gratifications, then the same macro-micro GS dimensions as the total sample will be used to define niche dimensionality for the subgroup.
If the chi square test shows that the subgroups do differ, then the gratifications items will be factor analyzed for each subgroup to define niche dimensionality for each subgroup.
Manager Levels: GS Dimensions
Following the standard definitions cited in Chapter II, the main sample (N=351) was categorized into firstline managers (N=104), middle managers (N=121) and top managers (N=126). LISREL VI was used to test of the equality of the original four factor and the macro-micro GS factor structures in these subgroups and the parallelism of the GO structures. A series of chi square tests rejected the equality of the
GS covariance matrices, factor structures, factor loadings and phi matrices of interfactor loadings in the three managerial subgroups.
In other words, niche dimensionality differs across these managerial levels and factor analysis should proceed separately for the subgroups. The LISREL VI confirmatory factor analysis of the GS model in the three subgroups showed that a series of model modifications 72
would be necessary and an exploratory approach was more appropriate.
Hence, Table 7 displays the results of the SAS principal axis factor solutions for the three managerial levels. Common variance explained ranged from 90% to 93% for the managerial level GS solutions.
Although the scree plot indicated a possible third factor for the firstline managers, a third factor would have elevated the common variance explained to over 100%.
Low interfactor correlations between the macro and micro dimensions obtained in all cases, corroborating a similar finding in the overall factor analysis. In other words, regardless of managerial level seeking macro level gratifications is weakly related to micro level media expectations. Chronbach's alpha values ranged from .68 to
.78 with higher reliabilites for the firstline and top level GS macro and micro scale dimensions.
As depicted in Table 7 a two factor macro-micro solution was retained for all three managerial levels. Factor 1 represents micro-level needs, and Factor 2 the macro-level needs. The only differences across the solutions were: (1) the local item loaded on the macro factor for middle managers, but the micro factor for firstline and top level managers, (2) the "legal" and "mergers" items did not load on the middle manager solution, and (3) the "managerial styles" item did not load on the middle and top manager solutions.
As noted earlier in this chapter, the local item double loaded on the macro and micro factors in the overall GS factor solution. The 73
Table 7
Principal Axis Factor Solution for Gratifications Sought by Managerial Levels
FIRSTLINE MID MANAGER TOP MANAGER
FI F2 FI F2 FI F2
Macro Environment
Local .49 .23 .15 .44 .49 .22 National .33 .49 .05 .56 .30 .59 International .26 .52 .23 .48 .08 .63 Legal .24 .45 -.03 .28 -.09 .42 Economic .06 .53 .15 .55 .13 .57 Finance-taxes .11 .61 -.06 .62 .08 .35 Finance-stocks .01 .72 -.27 .68 -.06 .65 Mergers .33 .67 .10 .26 .36 .54
Micro Environment
Markets .52 .18 .59 .13 .63 -.06 Competitors .60 .00 .54 .08 .64 .04 Suppliers .50 .21 .44 -.03 .53 -.04 New technology .34 .19 .37 .22 .44 .17 Improve product .65 -.08 .71 -.03 .75 -.05 Mgr styles .55 .02 .20 .18 .34 .34 Other people .61 .07 .37 .12 .38 .15 Make decision .60 .08 .33 -.07 .37 .17
Reliability .78 .78 .68 .70 .74 .74
Common Variance .90 .92 .93
Interfactor Correlation .28 .07 .25
N 104 121 126 74
managerial level factor solutions suggest an explanation for this double loading. Keeping up with trends in the local business community is associated with the middle manager's set of macro level needs, but the micro level needs of firstline and top level managers.
Firstline supervisors may view local business conditions in conjunction with their everyday contacts with customers or suppliers, while corporate responsibility to the local community may be tied to the micro level needs of top managers. Middle managers are one step removed from the operational level and may view local business conditions as part of the external environment. At the same time, middle managers may look to other sources — perhaps internal — to keep up with mergers and acquisitions and legal, legislative and regulatory trends. The need for information about managerial styles and techniques, however, is clearly associated with the micro dimension only for firstline managers and probably reflects their mangerial responsibilities at the operational level. In contrast, this item doubles loads on both factors for top level managers and probably reflects dual concerns for managing people and activities in both the internal and external environment of the firm. Mid level managers may be less concerned with learning new managerial styles and more concerned with continuation of an appropriate style that successfully translates top management directives into operation.
Manager Levels: GO Dimensions
Tables 8-10 present the LISREL estimates for the firstline, middle and top level managerial GO item loadings on their respective 75
Table 8
LISREL Estimates for Gratifications Sought and Obtained ^ Firstline Managers
MACRODIMENSION
GS NP TV CAMGWS TP
National .58 .61 .47 .68 .55 .65 .62 International .60 .64 .74 .80 .71 .74 .75 Legal .31 .39 .33 .63 .39 .17 .60 Economic .50 .78 .51 .82 .78 .77 .91 Finance-taxes .60 .64 .60 .89 .81 .33 .68 Finance-stocks .63 .78 .49 .71 .81 .43 .62 Me rgers .76 .66 .66 .79 .71 .48 .72
Reliability .78 .87 .75 .94 1.00 .99 .87
MICRODIMENSION
Markets .48 .61 .68 .69 .40 .41 .72 Competitors .58 .69 .79 .66 .56 .71 .63 Suppliers .50 .69 .66 .86 .92 .80 .59 New technology .41 .63 .56 .61 .58 .55 .34 Improve product .55 .76 .85 .68 .83 .79 .45 Mgr styles .60 .52 .57 .72 .55 .71 .49 Other people .65 .46 .68 .73 .62 .35 .45 Make decision .64 ..66 .76 .85 .78 .84 .46
Reliabili ty .78 .87 .93 .91 .96 .92 .77
Interfactor Correlation .44 .59 .78 .63 .39 .53 .43
N 104 80 57 51 35 31 38 76
Table 9
LISREL Estimates for Gratifications Sought and Obtained ^ Middle Managers
MACRO DIMENSION
GS NP TV CAMGWSTP
National .57 .58 .69 .69 .50 .36 .38 International .47 .75 .64 .61 .40 .42 .60 Legal .28 .35 .40 .68 .61 .24 .15 Economic .56 .65 .62 .73 .71 .72 .65 Finance-taxes .61 .75 .72 .83 .94 .78 .74 Finance-stocks .64 .71 .62 .61 .66 .77 .54 Mergers .26 .70 .56 .71 .75 .18 .63 00 00
Reliability .70 • .83 .85 .96 .76 .71
MICRODIMENSION
Ma rkets .56 .52 .69 .65 .72 .50 .61 Competi tors .55 .60 .70 .64 .49 .69 .82 Suppliers .42 .52 .77 .62 .44 .65 .80 New technology .38 .64 .62 .68 .60 .54 .71 Improve product .74 .70 .81 .59 .99 .65 .57 Mgr styles .41 .71 .73 .65 .53 .55 .64 Other people .41 .51 .69 .76 .56 .48 .57 Make decision .35 .71 .71 .54 .52 .64 .70
Reliabili ty .68 .83 .95 .89 .97 .84 .86
Interfactor Correlation .10 .67 .64 .68 .26 .20 .55
N 121 83 51 47 38 64 42 77
Table 10
LISREL Estimates for Gratifications Sought and Obtained ^ Top Managers
MACRODIMENSION
GS NP TVCAMGWS TP
National .65 .54 .55 .69 .83 .79 .51 International .61 .75 .58 .62 .47 .70 .28 Legal .35 .45 .57 .46 .59 .35 .39 Economic .57 .68 .48 .62 .91 .58 .88 Finance-taxes .37 .65 .69 .84 .50 .54 .67 Finance-stocks .58 .45 .36 .64 .44 .68 .73 Me rgers .64 .55 .49 .70 .56 .64 .48
Reliabili ty .74 .83 .85 .94 1.00 .82 .80
MICRODIMENSION
Markets .61 .62 .55 .66 .70 .49 .44 Competi tors .67 .60 .55 .75 .67 .68 .55 Suppliers .55 .58 .70 .62 .65 .55 .73 New technology .44 .65 .73 .71 .64 .62 .59 Improve product .72 .71 .52 .87 .65 .71 .58 Mgr styles .43 .65 .68 .70 .71 .74 .56 Other people .44 .46 .37 .54 .68 .63 .47 Make decision .40 .66 .69 .82 .37 .48 .44
Reliabili ty .74 .84 .81 .89 .91 .83 .73
Interfactor Correlation .43 .65 .79 .66 .38 .60 .26
N 126 99 50 49 33 56 50 78
macro and micro dimensions for six mediums: newspapers (NP), broadcast television (TV), cable television (CA), general news magazines (MG), the Wall Street Journal (WS) and trade press publications (TP).
Each GO solution reflects only those respondents who reported using that medium.
Interfactor correlations for newspapers, broadcast and cable were high across the three managerial levels. While relatively moderate GO interfactor correlations were noted in the main sample for news magazines, the Wall Street Journal and trade press publications, this was the case only for gratifcations obtained from news magazines for the three managerial levels. Macro and micro gratifications obtained from the Wall Street Journal were highly correlated for firstline and top managers, while the gratificaions obtained from the trade press by middle managers were highly correlated.
Reliabilities for the breakdown by managerial levels were similar to the pattern for the entire sample. Alpha coefficients for the managerial level GO macro and micro dimensions are equivalent or higher than their respective GS coefficients. The decreasing cell sizes, particularly for news magazines, raises the prospect of deleting this medium from further analysis. The high reliabilities for the GO macro and micro scales obviate this conclusion.
With some exceptions, the GO solutions generally parallel the GS solutions. As Table 8 shows, the legal item failed to load on the WS solution for firstline managers. Although the legal item was an important category on the macro dimension of gratifications sought by all firstline managers, it was not important to the macro level gratifications obtained by readers of the Wall Street Journal . In contrast, Table 9 shows that the legal and mergers items were relatively important contributors to the macro gratifications derived from newspapers, magazines, broadcast and cable television, despite the low correlation between these items and the macro GS factor.
Similarly, Table 9 suggests that middle managers associated the managerial styles item with micro dimensional gratifications obtained from the media, although this item did not load on the middle manager
GS solution. Given that the managerial styles item double loaded on the top manager GS solution, the GO loadings given in Table 10 for this item are consistent and no other discrepancies appear in the solutions.
Company Size and Type of Industry
The question here is whether managing a small or large business or in a service or non-service industry gives rise to different sets of information needs. With the cutoff of 100 employees or less, the sample was divided into managers in small businesses (N=185) and large businesses (N=165). In a separate analysis, the sample was divided into managers in service (N=269) or non-service (N=49) industries.
The equality of the subgroup GS factor structures was tested with
LISREL VI. Chi square is used to test the null hypothesis that the same hypothesized model holds simultaneously in both groups. If the chi square is significant, the null is rejected and the researcher concludes that the groups have different factor structures. If chi 80
square is non-significant, we fail to reject the null and conclude
that the groups have similar structures. Chi square was non-significant for both breakdowns of managers in small versus large businesses and service versus non-service industries. As a result,
the overall macro and micro dimensional factor structure obtained for
the entire sample will be used in calculations of niche breadth, niche overlap and the superiority measures.
To review, two dimensions of macro and micro level managerial gratifications sought (GS) defined the resource space available to the population of competing media organizations offering business news content, which persisted across small and large businesses, service and non-service industries, and with minor exceptions at three managerial levels. Parallel macro and micro dimensional structures characterized the resource utilization patterns of gratifications obtained (GO). Although the reliability coefficients for the gratifications sought solutions ranged from .68 to .78, the alphas for the gratifications obtained solutions showed stronger internal consistency and ranged from .73 to 1.00. This was particularly important, since the niche breadth, niche overlap and superiority measures are derived from the gratifications obtained items. Having established the macro-micro GS-GO architecture of niche dimensionality, the next chapter will examine the functional diversity and similarity among the media and report the niche breadth and overlap findings. CHAPTER IV
RESULTS: NICHE BREADTH AND NICHE OVERLAP
This chapter further describes the pattern of ecological organization among the population of media organizations serving mangerial need gratifications in the social environment. Having identified GS-GO niche dimensionality as two sets of macro and micro managerial information needs, the next step was to describe the diversity and similarity among the population of media organizations in serving these needs. Niche breadth and niche overlap metrics were used to assess the diversity and similarity in mangerial need gratifications along the macro and micro dimensions.
Introduction
When the ecological concept of the niche was combined with the uses and gratifications approach, the niche breadth measure was designed to determine the diversity of a medium in providing gratifications across each dimension defined by the gratifications sought resource space. Having determined that the media GO factors parallel the GS resource space dimensions, analysis turned to the relative diversity of each medium in satisfying the managerial information need items on each of the macro and micro GO dimensions.
81 Since the niche breadth and overlap measures are formulated from
the gratifications items, a brief review of the items on the macro and micro dimensions follows. Omitting the local item, the macro dimension consisted of seven items which asked respondents whether each medium they used was "a lot, somewhat, only a little or not at
all helpful" for keeping up with national, international, legal, economic, taxes, stocks and merger trends. The eight items on the micro dimension asked respondents how helpful each medium they used was for information about improving their product or service, new
technology, competitors, customers, suppliers, managerial styles, decision making and to pass information along to other people in their company.
The same dimensions persisted when the sample was divided by size of company and type of business or industry and for firstline managers. The factor solution for middle managers resulted in deletion of the legal, merger and managerial style items, leaving a five item macro dimension and a seven item micro dimension. Because the managerial style item double loaded on the factor solution for the top managers, it was deleted and left seven items on both the macro and micro dimensions.
Niche Breadth
The niche breadth measure (see Chapter II for formula) has the attractive property of ranging from zero to one, and is a simple arithmetic mean calculated first at the disaggregated level. Thus, low values indicate less diversity and high values greater diversity 83
in need gratifications. Recall that niche breadth reaches zero, when
all respondents rate all GO scales at the lower bound. Niche breadth
attains a value of one, when all respondents rate all GO scales at the
upper bound.
The niche breadth results will be presented first for the overall
managerial sample, then for the breakdowns by managerial levels, size
of company and type of business or industry. Each table gives the
niche breadths for the macro and micro dimensions for each medium and
the mean GO for each medium. By comparing the average GO rating with
the mean niche breadth value, it can be seen that the higher the
average rating, the more broad-based is the niche breadth value.
Table 11 gives the mean niche breadths for the total managerial
sample. On the macro dimension, mean niche breadth values ranged from
a high of .79 for the Journal to a low of .47 for television. The
other media were all above .50 and clustered between .56 and .62. The
trade press niche breadth was slightly lower than magazines and
newspapers, identical to cable, and higher than broadcast television.
Distributions were not skewed, except for significant negative
skewness above -1.0 for the Journal , which indicated the mean niche
breadth fell below the median (Chou, 1975; Coccari, 1981).
A similar 30+ point spread occured on the micro dimension, but
the mean GO and niche breadth values were lower and ranged from .34
for television to .69 for the trade press. The Journal had the
second highest niche breadth of .54. Magazines and newspapers showed moderate diversity with breadth values of .49 and .43. Cable and 84
broadcast television had the lowest micro breadth values of .34 and
.38. Thus, the specialized business and trade press exhibited the most diversity in satisfying micro dimension managerial need gratifications.
Table 11
Mean GO and Niche Breadth
MACRO MICRO N GONBGO NB CM
NP 262 • .58 2.29 .43 TV 158 2.41 .47 2.03 .34 CA 148 2.69 .56 2.14 .38 MG 106 2.87 .62 2.50 .49 WS 152 3.41 .79 2.65 .54 TP 135 2.76 .56 3.16 .69
Across both dimensions the four general news media had broader niches on the macro dimension than on the micro dimension. In other words, the general news media exhibited more niche generalism on the macro dimension than on the micro dimension. The breadth values also suggest that the general news media may be more vulnerable to competition on the micro dimension than on the macro dimension. Given their domain choice, this is not an unexpected finding. Since the general news media offer business news as one component within their overall news reporting responsibilities, it is more likely that they will seek to satisfy needs for information about general business trends reflected in the macro dimension.
Niche generalism is reversed on the two dimensions for the media with specialist organizational domains. The trade press had a broader 85
micro niche than its macro niche, but the opposite was the case for the Journal . The trade press exhibited the highest niche generalism on the micro dimension and the Journal on the macro dimension.
Print media were more diversified than the electronic media, particularly on the micro dimension. In other words, print media showed more niche generalism and the electronic media may be more vulnerable to print competitors. The cable television macro and micro niche breadths were among the lowest and higher only to broadcast television. Television scored uniformly low on both dimensions.
Despite recent network attempts to expand business coverage, these findings suggest that television has been less successful in upgrading its business content, at least for the managerial audience.
Manager Levels. Table 12 presents the niche breadth for the six media with breakdowns by firstline, middle and top managers. The same ecological pattern of niche breadths persisted, but a few minor differences emerged. On the macro dimension the trade press and cable macro niche breadths were nearly identical among top managers, but the trade press showed slightly less macro diversity than cable television among firstline and middle managers. On the micro dimension middle managers rated newspapers slightly higher than firstline or top managers, while the cable niche breadth was slightly higher for firstline managers. These findings suggest that the niche breadth of a medium may expand or contract slightly for different managerial levels. 86
Table 12
Mean GO and Niche Breadth by Managerial Levels
FIRSTLINEMACRO MICRO N GONBGONB
NP 80 2.79 .60 2.25 .42 TV 57 2.41 .47 2.01 .34 CA 51 2.76 .59 2.23 .41 MG 35 2.80 .61 2.49 .48 WS 31 3.39 .80 2.73 .58 TP 39 2.71 .56 3.06 .67
MID MANAGER MACRO MICRO NGONBGONB
NP 83 2.79 .59 2,44 .47 TV 51 2.48 .48 2.07 .35 CA 47 2.70 .57 2.08 .36 MG 37 2.96 .65 2.49 .50 WS 64 3.51 .82 2.61 .53 TP 46 2.67 .51 3.21 .67
TOP MANAGER MACRO MICRO NGONBGONB
NP 99 2.70 .57 2.30 .43 TV 50 2.40 .47 2.10 .37 CA 49 2.67 .55 2.10 .36 MG 33 2.95 .63 2.47 .48 WS 56 3.41 .79 2.64 .54 TP 39 2.71 .56 3.07 .67
Company Size and Type of Industry. Table 13 arrays the niche breadth values for the breakdowns by company size and type of industry. Recall that firms with fewer than 100 employees were classified as small businesses. Managers were also categorized by whether their firm produced tangible goods or services. The non-service or goods sector included manufacturing, construction and agriculture. 87
Table 13
Mean GO and Niche Breadth by Company Size and Type of Industry
LARGE MACRO MICRO NGONB GONB
NP 117 2.76 .58 2.28 .42 TV 82 2.38 .46 1 .95 .32 CA 73 2.67 .55 2.16 .38 MG 60 2.92 .64 2.46 .48 WS 74 3.43 .79 2.62 .53 TP 63 2.79 .56 3.08 .65
SMALL MACROMICRO NGO NB GO NB
NP 142 2.73 .58 2.31 .44 TV 7 5 2.44 .47 1.95 .32 CA 71 2.70 .57 2.09 .36 MG 44 2.81 .59 2.54 .51 WS 74 3.41 .80 2.71 .57 TP 7 2 2.73 .57 3.23 .73
SERV'ICES MACRO MICRO N GONBGONB
NP 200 2.75 .58 2.32 .44 TV 121 2.43 .47 2.03 .34 CA 116 2.76 .58 2.16 .38 MG 78 2.87 .62 2.57 .51 WS 115 3.45 .80 3.06 .55 TP 107 2.80 .57 3.20 .70
GOODS MACRO MICRO N GONB GO NB
NP 35 2.67 .56 2.21 .40 TV 20 2.27 .42 1.89 .30 CA 16 2.40 .47 1.93 .31 MG 13 2.90 .63 2.27 .44 WS 25 3.27 .76 2.51 .50 TP 23 2.63 .54 3.13 .71 88
Again, the same overall ecological pattern of niche breadths
persisted across these breakdowns. Of the few differences that
emerged within these subgroup comparisons, more differences occured
between goods and services than between large and small businesses.
Macro niche breadth was higher for news magazines among managers in
large businesses, and micro niche breadth was higher for the trade
press among managers in small businesses. Niche breadths were lower
among managers in the goods sector for broadcast and cable television
on the macro dimension and cable, news magazines and the Journal on
the micro dimension. Thus, niche breadth of a medium appeared to
expand or contract for managerial subgroups when partitioned by
company size and type of industry.
The niche breadth findings suggest that the population of media
organizations has a somewhat stable pattern of resource utilization
among the managerial collectivity and its substrata in the social
environment. The business and trade press media exhibited more niche
generalism than the general news media, and the general news media
showed more niche generalism on macro dimension and less generalism on
the micro dimension. Niche breadths expanded or contracted only
slightly in the substrata of managerial levels, size of company and
type of industry.
While niche breadths diagnose the relative diversity of resource utilization by each medium in the population, the extent of ecological
similarity or niche overlap provides a barometer of the competitive
relations in the population. The more any two competitors rely on the 89
same resources, the greater the intensity of the competitive
relations. In contrast, lower overlaps indicate more niche separation
and resource partitioning among competitors, and consequently less
intense competition.
Niche Overlap
The niche overlap results will be given first for the total
managerial sample, then for the breakdowns by managerial levels,
company size and type of business or industry. Each table will
display the results by three types of comparisons: (1) between
generalists and specialists, (2) generalists and generalists, and (3)
specialists and specialists. As discussed in Chapter I, a diverse
population of media organizations provide business news and
information. Media practitioners and researchers alike commonly refer
to the general news media and the specialized media (Gussow, 1984).
The generalists offer business news as one component of their overall
news coverage, while the specialized business and trade press are devoted exclusively to business news. In ecological terms the general
news media and specialized media would be viewed as two organizational
forms which utilize similar resources (Aldrich, 1979).
Since niche overlap measures the extent of similarity in need gratifications between two mediums, fifteen pairwise comparisons were
calculated between the six media for the macro and micro dimensions.
The N's in the tables are based on those respondents who used both mediums in each pair. The grand means indicate the average need satsifaction for the media pair and can be used in conjunction with 90
the overlap values to determine whether the similarity is a function of high or low levels of need gratification. As stated in Chapter II, the overlap could attain a value of zero under two disparate conditions, when both mediums are rated at the upper or at the lower bound of the scale. In such cases the grand means can be used to determine where the similarity is lodged.
Bearing in mind that overlap is an inverse measure, low values represent high overlap and higher values indicate low overlap (see
Chapter II for formula). Since the overlap formula was designed to reflect the degree to which respondents rate both mediums the same, the measure ranges from zero to three, i.e., the maximum distance between the low and high scale points. Thus, while theoretically possible, an overlap score of zero will obtain only when all respondents rate both mediums the same on all scales on a dimension.
Similarly, an overlap score of three will occur when all respondents rate one medium at the low end of the scale, and the other medium at the high end of the scale on all items on a dimension (Dimmick, 1985).
Turning first to the overall results without partitioning the sample into subgroups, the data in Table 14 prompt some general observations. None of the distributions showed significant skewness.
Niche overlap values above 1.0 predominate in the pairwise comparisons between media with generalist and specialist domains. In contrast, values below 1.0 pervade the comparisons among the generalists and overlap fluctuates around 1.0 for the specialist comparisons. In other words, less similarity in need gratification and less direct 91
competition characterize the relations between generalist and
specialist media forms in managerial need gratifications, but more
functional similarity occurs among the generalists and between the
specialists. Thus, the general news media pose a less direct
competitive threat to the specialist media, and competition is more
intense among the generalists and between the specialists. Detailed
examination of Table 1A also reveals dimensional differences in the
competitive intensity between and among the media with generalist and
specialist domains.
Table 1A
Mean GO and Niche Overlap for Media Pairs
MACRO MICRO GENERAL v SPECIALIZED N GONOGONO
NP - WS 100 3.01 1.31 2.A2 1.17 NP - TP 99 2.75 1.26 2.68 1.58 MG - WS A3 3.12 1.06 2.62 .9A MG - TP 39 2.92 .86 2.93 1.20 TV - WS 52 2.89 1.58 2.33 1.39 TV - TP A9 2.55 1.19 2.5A 1.68 CA - WS 57 3.0A 1.23 2.33 1.10 CA - TP 53 2.69 1.0A 2.A7 1.35
GENERAL v GENERAL
NP - MG 82 2.8A .91 2.A7 .87 NP - TV 125 2.61 .87 2.19 .76 NP - CA 110 2.72 1.09 2.27 .98 MG - TV 5A 2.67 .96 2.32 1.06 MG - CA A9 2.81 .90 2.33 .91 TV - CA 83 2.A3 .91 2.03 .78
SPECIALIZED v. SPECIALIZED
WS - TP 57 3.12 .93 2.77 1.12 92
Generalist versus Specialist. Overlaps were lower on the macro
than on the micro dimension in the four pairwise comparisons between
the Wall Street Journal and newspapers, news magazines, broadcast
and cable television. In the four comparisons between the trade press
and these same media, overlaps were lower on the micro than on the
macro dimension. Moreover, the trade press micro overlap was lower
than the macro overlap with the Journal for each general news
medium. In other words, more distance separated the Wall Street
Journal from each of the four general news media on the macro
dimension and even greater distancing occured on the micro dimension
between the trade press and each of the general news media. Thus, a
cross-dimensional pattern of low intensity competition characterized
the macro comparisons with the Journal and the micro comparisons
with the trade press.
Within this low intensity pattern, newspapers and broadcast
television had lower macro overlaps with the Journal and lower micro
overlaps with the trade press than did cable television and news magazines. Not surprisingly, the least amount of overlap occurs
between television and the Wall Street Journal , with an overlap
value of 1.58 on the macro dimension. Even greater niche separation
occurs between the trade press and television on the micro dimension with an overlap value of 1.68. Newspapers ranked second to television with a macro overlap of 1.31 with the Journal and a micro overlap of
1.58 with the trade press. Cable television achieved slightly more
similarity with the specialists with a macro overlap of 1.23 with the 93
Journal and a micro overlap of 1.35 with the trade press. News magazines scored the highest of the general news media in macro overlap with the Wall Street Journal (1.06) and micro overlap with the trade press (1.20).
Thus, these results appear to lend confirmation to the popular belief that the Journal may be the primary stakeholder in coverage of general business trends in national, international, legal, economic and financial sectors of the business environment represented by the macro dimension. Similarly, the trade press appears to have achieved a clear-cut niche separation from the general news media on the micro dimension. These results suggest that the business news activity of the general news media may pose relatively little threat to the Wall
Street Journal on the macro dimension, nor to the trade press on the micro dimension, despite the attempts noted in Chapter I to increase and improve business news coverage by the general news media.
However, these low intensity overlaps may also permit the general news media to exist alongside the specialists in the same resource space. Low overlaps indicate little direct confrontation and more competitive avoidance. While little competitive advantage might be gained, low overlaps may at least confer a survival capability to the general news media.
Although the Journal and trade press appear to face low intensity competition from the general news media on the macro and micro dimensions respectively, the overlaps also indicate that competition is relatively more intense on the opposite dimensions. 94
The general news media showed more micro overlap with the Journal and more macro overlap with the trade press. In each case the macro overlap with the trade press was higher than the micro overlap with the Journal «, In other words, the trade press and the general news media were more likely to serve similar macro need gratifications.
Among the four generalists news magazines had highest micro overlap with the trade press (.86), followed by cable television (1.04), broadcast television (1.19) and newspapers (1.26). These overlap values suggest that general news media may be able to gain a competitive advantage on the macro dimension, given that the trade press niche breadth indicated lower diversity on the macro dimension.
Generalist versus Generalist. As noted above, overlap values of less than 1.0 typified the comparisons among the general news media. In other words, there appears to be appreciably more overlap, less niche separation and more functional similarity in managerial need gratifications among the generalist media offering business news as one component of their news coverage. Thus, more rivalry characterizes the competition among the generalists.
Although micro overlaps were slightly higher than macro overlaps in four of the six pairwise comparisons, only marginal differences occured within and between the macro and micro dimensions. Overlaps ranged from .87 to 1.09 on the macro dimension and from .76 to 1.06 on the micro dimension. Broadcast television scored the highest overlaps on the micro dimension with newspapers (.76) and cable television
(.78). News magazines registered the least overlap on the micro 95
dimension with broadcast television (1.06), and cable television
exhibited the least similarity on the macro dimension with newspapers
(1.09). Macro and micro overlaps of .90 and .91 between magazines and
cable television indicated that news magazines and cable not only pose
a threat to the trade press on the macro dimension, but also appear to be close competitors with each other on both dimensions.
Print and electronic media comparisons yield additional clarification of the competitive relations among the general news media. First, the two print mediums NP-MG had nearly identical overlaps across the macro (.91) and micro (.87) dimensions, while the
two electronic mediums TV-CA showed more micro similarity (.78) than macro similarity (.91). Second, broadcast television was a closer competitor to newspapers on both dimensions (.87 and .76), but more distant to magazines (.96 and 1.06). In contrast, cable television was more similar to magazines (.90 and .91) but less similar to newspapers (1.09 and .98).
Since the overlaps among the general news media are distributed over a rather narrow range, it is of interest to determine whether the overlap falls at the low or high end of the GO scales. As a result,
Table 14 also provides the grand mean for the gratifications obtained items for each media pair. The grand means for the macro dimension are approximately one-half a scale point higher than for the micro dimension in each pairwise comparison. The macro dimension grand means range from 2.43 to 2.84, while the micro grand means range from
2.03 to 2.47. In other words, ecological similarity among the general 96
news media was confined to the resource space on the micro dimension at scale points reflecting slightly lower need satisfaction levels than on the macro dimension.
Specialist versus Specialist. Turning to the comparison between the Journal and the trade press in Table 14, again more overlap occurs between similar organizational forms. Values on both dimensions are just above and below 1.0. Relatively more overlap occurs on the macro dimension between the specialists (.93) than on the micro dimension (1.12).
Manager Levels. Table 15 gives the niche overlaps for the breakdowns by firstline, middle and top level managerial subgroups.
Just as GS solutions differed and niche breadths showed some expansion and contraction, the overlaps fluctuated across the managerial levels.
Low intensity competition characterized the generalist versus specialist comparisons and overlaps were higher among the general news media, but overlaps varied across managerial levels between the specialists.
In the generalist versus specialist comparisons the Journal maintained lower overlaps on the macro dimension and the trade press on the micro dimension across the subgroups. Among middle and top managers the trade press micro overlaps showed greater distancing from the generalists than the Journal macro overlaps. Among the firstline managers the Journal macro overlaps surpassed the trade press micro overlaps and indicated even more niche separation between the Journal and general news media for this subgroup. 97
Table 15
Mean GO and Niche Overlap by Managerial Levels
FIRSTLINE MACRO MICRO N GONO GONO (A) NP - WS 21 3.00 1.70 2.31 1.41 NP - TP 27 2.73 1.25 2.62 1.64
MG - WS 8 2.91 1.72 2.62 1.22 MG - TP 12 2.88 .63 2.93 1.45 TV - WS 12 2.91 1.90 2.24 1.74
TV - TP 13 2.37 1.12 2.36 1.88 CA - WS 11 3.16 1.72 2.33 1.13 CA - TP 16 2.64 .93 2.59 1.61
(B) NP _ MG 31 2.76 .75 2.40 .71 NP - TV A3 2.56 .74 2.11 .63
NP - CA 36 2.72 .92 2.56 .86 MG - TV 21 2.54 .73 2.16 .84
MG - CA 19 2.69 .67 2.24 .96
TV - CA 30 2.41 .87 2.06 .77
(C) WS _ TP 12 3.25 1.62 2.75 1.14
MID MANAGERS
NP - WS 37 3.03 1.32 2.52 1.10 NP - TP 27 2.79 1.30 2.83 1 .61 MG - WS 15 3.22 1.12 2.46 .98 MG - TP 10 2.77 .93 2.87 1.29 TV - WS 19 2.91 1.61 2.24 1.20
TV - TP 18 2.55 1.14 2.55 1.65
CA - WS 22 3.16 1.26 2.21 1.01 CA - TP 17 2.85 1.19 2.75 1 .61
NP _ MG 25 2.93 1.01 2.57 1.03 NP - TV 40 2.66 .86 2.30 .77 NP - CA 36 2.76 1.20 2.34 .97 MG - TV 18 2.80 1.04 2.52 1.22 MG - CA 15 2.86 1.22 2.32 .87 TV - CA 27 2.39 .98 2.03 .89
WS _ TP 23 3.06 .94 2.76 1 .29 98
Table 15 (Continued)
TOP MANAGERS NP - WS 41 3.01 1.31 2.44 1.06 NP - TP 41 2.73 1.46 2.65 1.46 MG - WS 19 3.21 .92 2.69 .78 MG - TP 14 3.15 1.53 2.92 .94 TV - WS 21 2.86 1.56 2.45 1.36 TV - TP 16 2.74 1.57 2.70 1.51 CA - WS 23 2.94 1.20 2.44 1.11 CA - TP 18 2.67 1.47 2.36 1.52 NP - MG 24 2.86 1.00 2.42 1.00 NP - TV 41 2.63 1.05 2.22 .86 NP - CA 37 2.69 1.19 2.18 1.09 MG - TV 15 2.78 1.14 2.33 1.13 MG - CA 15 2.96 .89 2.42 .84 TV - CA 25 2.53 .84 2.03 .64 WS - TP 19 3.17 1.59 2.69 .90
(A) Generalist v. specialist, (B) generalist v. generalist, (C) specialist v. specialist.
The trade press overlaps on the macro dimension are more critical, since niche breadths indicated the trade press may be vulnerable to competition for macro need gratifications. Macro overlaps between the trade press and the generalists were higher among firstline and middle managers, but lower for top managers. In other words, the trade press was more distinct from the general news media in providing macro need gratifications for top managers.
Competitive intensity continued to reign among the general news media, and was particularly acute in the firstline managerial subgroup with overlap values well below 1.0 across both dimensions. Low overlaps prevailed among the middle and top level managers but superceded the firstline managerial overlaps, and indicated slightly less intense competition among the generalists for need gratifications 99
in the middle and top managerial subgroups. The macro overlap between
magazines and cable television, for example, was .67 for firstline
managers but 1.22 for middle managers and .89 for top managers. On
the micro dimension the overlap between newspapers and cable
television was .86 for firstline managers, but .97 for middle managers
and 1.09 for top managers.
Finally, relatively low overlaps persisted between the Journal
and the trade press, but not on the macro dimension for firstline
(1.62) and top level managers (1.59). Since cell sizes drop
precipitously below 20 in both cases, these results should be viewed
tentatively and with caution. When the specialist publications were
compared to the general news media, competitive intensity was lower
for the Journal on the macro dimension than for the trade press on
the micro dimension for firstline managers, but not for middle or top
level managers. Aside from the firstline managers who used both newspapers and the specialist publications, the cell sizes in these
comparisons were below 20. Low overlaps characterized the WS-TP
comparisons, but not for firstline and top managers on the macro d i m e n s i o n .
Company Size and Type of Industry. Table 16 displays the overlaps for the managerial breakdown by large and small businesses.
The data are also consistent with the overall patterns noted in the previous sections. Less overlap occurs between generalists and
specialists, but more overlap among the generalists and between the
specialist publications. In the overlaps between the generalists 100
Table 16
Mean GO and Niche Overlap for Large and Small Businesses
MACRO MICRO LARGENGONO GO NO
(A) NP — WS 41 3.04 1.30 2.43 1.17 NP - TP 35 2.80 1.21 2.65 1.00
MG - WS 14 3.10 1.17 2.48 1.17 MG - TP 18 2.95 .93 2.81 1.34
TV - WS 22 2.81 1.63 2.20 1.38 TV - TP 22 2.53 1.16 2.47 1.87
CA - WS 28 3.08 1.31 2.36 1.19
CA - TP 22 2.69 .94 2.63 1.42
(B) NP — MG 45 2.90 .94 2.46 .87
NP - TV 58 2.58 .91 2.16 .79
NP - CA 49 2.71 1.05 2.27 .88 MG - TV 31 2.70 1.02 2.21 1.16 MG - CA 25 2.81 .95 2.34 .95 TV - CA 41 2.39 .91 2.05 .80
(C) WS - TP 23 3.14 .98 2.76 1.11
SMALL
(A) NP _ WS 46 2.97 1.32 2.41 1.17
NP - TP 44 2.71 1.30 2.70 1.57 MG - WS 21 3.15 .99 2.72 .75 MG - TP 13 2.90 .76 3.10 .98 TV - WS 22 2.96 1.53 2.46 1.41
TV - TP 21 2.58 1.23 2.62 1.51 CA - WS 21 3.00 1.10 2.29 .97
CA - TP 23 2.73 1.28 2.59 1 .72
(B) NP — MG 29 2.74 .87 2.47 .88
NP - TV 56 2.63 .84 2.21 .73
NP - CA 50 2.72 1.13 2.27 1.08 MG - TV 16 2.62 .84 2.43 .86 MG - CA 18 2.82 .83 2.32 .83 TV - CA 32 2.48 .91. 2.28 .76
(C) WS — TP 28 3.09 .91 2.77 1.13
(A) Generalist v. specialist, (B) generalist v. generalist, (C) specialist v. specialist. 101
and specialists the news magazines appear to pose a competitive
challenge for need gratifications among managers in small businesses
to the Journal on the micro dimension (.75) and to the trade press
on the macro dimension (.76). Otherwise the Journal maintains
comfortable distances from the general news media on both dimensions,
and the trade press only on the micro dimension.
Although lower overlaps prevailed among the general news media
for managers in both large and small businesses, more similarity in need gratifications appeared among managers in small businesses. The overlaps in macro and micro need gratifications among the general news media were slightly higher for managers in small businesses than in
large businesses with one exception. Competition was slightly higher between newspapers and cable television for need gratifications among managers in large businesses.
Table 17 gives the overlaps for managers in goods and service industries. Although the Journal overlaps with newspaper, magazine and cable showed distributional skewness for the goods sector, again the data suggest the same pattern of lower overlaps between generalist and specialist media, and higher overlaps between the generalists and between the specialists. The only notable difference between these subgroups was the higher overlap between newspapers and cable television among managers in the service sector.
In summary, niche breadths and overlaps further elaborated the macro-micro dimensional nature of functional differentiation and similarity in the population. The Wall Street Journal and the trade Table 17
Mean GO and Niche Overlap by Type of Industry
MACRO MICRO SERVICES NGONOGONO
(A) NP - WS 78 3.02 1.31 2.45 1.21 NP - TP 62 2.78 1.21 2.70 1.56 MG - WS 29 3.11 1.03 2.60 .92 MG - TP 24 2.93 .87 2.95 1.33 TV - WS 40 2.89 1.58 2.28 1.41 TV - TP 31 2.57 1.18 2.56 1.57 CA - WS 42 3.09 1.21 2.34 1.01 CA - TP 38 2.75 1.13 2.66 1.59
(B) NP - MG 54 2.81 .90 2.53 .91 NP - TV 94 2.60 .87 2.19 .77 NP - CA 76 2.73 1.06 2.28 .95 MG - TV 34 2.58 .95 2.34 1.07 MG - CA 32 2.79 .81 2.36 .82 TV - CA 54 2.48 .87 2.06 .74
WS - TP 35 3.20 .84 2.83 1.11
GOODS
(A) NP -WS 13 2.89 1.30 2.21 .90 NP - TP 15 2.66 1.43 2.61 1.61 MG - WS 3.19 1.22 2.51 .97 MG - TP 7 2.87 .85 2.85 .77 TV - WS 7 2.18 1.75 2.21 1.27 TV - TP 2.69 1 .23 2.55 1.95 CA - WS 7 2.90 1.30 2.09 1.35 CA -TP 7 2.69 1.16 2.60 1.65
(B) NP - MG 8 3.00 1.15 2.25 .74 NP - TV 16 2.63 .92 2.15 .77 NP - CA 9 2.48 1.23 2.19 1.20 MG - TV 6 2.74 1.25 2.09 1.20 MG - CA 5 2.71 1.23 2.00 1.10 TV - CA 7 2.10 1.09 1.67 .95
(C) WS - TP 13 2.82 1.15 2.64 1.18
(A) Generalist v. specialist, (B) generalist v. generalist, (C) specialist v. specialist. 103
press had the broadest niches and were least similar to the general
news media on the macro and micro dimensions respectively. Cable
television and magazines were engaged in more intense competition with
the trade press on the macro dimension and with each other on both
dimensions, especially for managers in small companies and in service
industries. More intense competition prevailed among the generalists
and between the specialists, and was particularly acute among the
generalists for firstline managers. However, the GO grand means
indicted that macro competition centered on more highly valued need
gratifications.
These results suggest that the social environment may support a diverse population of organizational forms through a complex pattern
of resource partitioning between the sets and subsets of macro and micro managerial need gratifications. More niche separation may permit two mediums to coexist by avoiding direct confrontation with each other. When two mediums share similar resources, however, audience selection is a matter of functional equivalence or relative superiority of one medium over another. Two mediums may coexist in a multi-dimensional resource space, if the two mediums are superior to each other on opposite dimensions. Coexistence may also be possible, when one medium is at least equivalent to the other on one dimension.
While the overlaps describe the intensity of competition, they do not identify which medium is the superior competitor. The next chapter will present the results of the pairwise comparisons of media superiorities for the macro and micro dimensions. CHAPTER V
RESULTS: COMPETITIVE SUPERIORITY
Although niche breadths and overlaps portray the intensity of competition, they do not identify which medium is the superior competitor. If a medium is to survive in a population competing for limited resources, it must acquire a margin of superiority or at least equivalence with another member of the population on at least one environmental resource dimension. Moreover, superiority or equivalence may emerge in the ability of a medium to provide need gratifications for the managerial collectivity as a whole or in one of the managerial subgroups. Thus, this chapter examines the relative superiorities among the diverse population of media organizations as they seek to serve the macro and micro needs of managerial audience and its substrata in the social environment.
The superiority of one medium over another was calculated with the Sd (direction) and Sm (magnitude) measures (see Chapter II for formulas). Computed simply as the sum of the number of scale items on which a respondent rated one medium higher than the other medium, Sd values indicate whether superiority in need gratification lies in the direction of one medium or the other. The magnitude of the
104 105
superiority is given by Sm, the sum of the scale ratings for those items on which one medium is rated higher than the other. Both measures are arithmetic means, calculated first at the disaggregated level and only for respondents who used both mediums in each pair.
Thus, t-tests and power analysis for correlated groups were used to test the null of equivalence given the cell size and effect size for each pairwise comparison.
The Sd direction and SM magnitude results will be given first for the macro dimension then for the micro dimension. For each dimension the findings will be presented first for the total managerial sample and followed by the breakdowns by managerial level, size of company and type of industry. Briefly, the possible outcomes for each pairwise comparison on a dimension are: (1) both measures (Sd and Sm) are significant and the same medium is superior, (2) both measures are significant but one measure shows medium i as superior while the other indicates medium j superior, (3) one measure is significant while the other is not, and (4) neither measure is statistically significant, i.e., neither medium is superior.
Macro Dimension
The macro dimension consisted of seven items for the total managerial sample. The macro dimension represented a need for information about the external business environment. The items included keeping up with national, international, legal, economic and financial trends in mergers, taxes and stocks. 106
Table 18 gives the superiority of one medium over another for
macro dimension need gratifications for the total sample. In the
columns labelled Sd and Sm, the top value refers to the outcome for
the media pair in the first column, e.g., 1.81 is Sd for WS>NP, while
.47 is Sd for NP>WS. The Sd and Sm measures were consistent for all
fifteen pairwise comparisons, i.e., if medium i was superior to medium
.1 in direction it was also superior in magnitude.
In the generalist versus specialist comparisons, the Wall Street
Journal was superior to all four general news mediums, but the trade press was superior only to television. Newspapers, magazines and cable television were superior to broadcast television in the comparisons between generalists, while between specialists the
Journal was superior to trade press publications. No superiority emerged in the other comparisons.
Table 19 gives the effect size (ES) and power for two-tailed correlated t-tests with alpha level of .05. As noted in Chapter II, power of .80 is conventionally required to accept or reject the null hypothesis of no difference. Low power indicates a high probablity of beta error (1-power), while moderate power values suggest a 50-50 chance of mistakenly accepting the null of equivalence.
Large effect sizes and power above the conventional .80 levels accompanied the t-tests which yielded significant pairwise differences. Effect sizes were low to moderate for the non-significant t-tests. Thus, given the cell sizes power was insufficient to accept the null of equivalence. 107
Table 18
Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities
N Sd t Sm t (A) WS>NP 100 2.18 13.43 *** WS>NP 8.36 14.29 *** .30 1.07 TP=NP 99 1.27 .61 TP=NP 4.58 1.20 1.16 3.85 WS>MG A3 2.03 8.18 *** WS>MG 7.79 8.42 *** .23 .80 TP=MG 39 1.00 .33 TP=MG 3.75 .09 1.10 3.65 WS>TV 52 2.68 13.78 *** WS>TV 10.28 14.92 *** .20 .58 TP>TV A9 1 .79 4.14 *** TP>TV 6.41 5.34 *** .63 1.71 WS>CA 57 2.01 9.32 *** WS>CA 7.60 10.30 *** . 2A .70 TP=CA 53 1.20 .63 TP=CA 4.30 .96 1.03 3.40
(B) MG=NP 82 1.05 1.61 MG=NP 3.82 1.71 .76 2.69 NP>TV 125 l.AA 7.40 *** NP>TV 4.95 9.73 *** .33 1.06 NP=CA 110 1.04 .44 NP=CA 3.63 .43 .96 3.36 MG>TV 5A 1.65 5.62 *** MG>TV 5.84 5.61 *** .47 1.57 MG=CA A9 1.05 1.79 MG=CA 3.51 1.53 .62 2.19 CA>TV 83 1.18 2.52 * CA>TV 3.91 2.97 ** .65 1.92
(C) WS>TP 57 1.48 7.00 *** WS>TP 5.41 6.73 *** .29 1.10
** *** * P < .05 p < .01 p < .001
(A) general news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general news media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. 108
Table 19
Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.Q5) for Macro Dimension
Sd Sm N ES POWER ES POWER
(A) WS>NP 100 2.44 * 2.55 * TP=NP 99 .11 11 .21 29 WS>MG A3 2.23 * 2.20 * TP=MG 39 .10 7 .03 0 WS>TV 52 3.31 * 3.76 * TP>TV A9 1.05 * 1.49 * WS>CA 57 2.09 * 2.42 * TP=CA 53 .15 13 .23 18
(B) MG=NP 82 .30 48 .32 52 NP>TV 125 1.42 * 1.44 * NP=CA 110 .07 11 .07 11 MG>TV 54 1.31 * 1.29 * MG=CA 49 .43 56 .37 44 CA>TV 83 • 90 .56 93 (C) WS>TP 57 1.45 * 1.43 •k * Power is above .995 (A) General news media versus specialized media (B) general versus general news media (C) specialized versus specialized. 109 Managerial Levels» Tables 20-22 give the Sd and Sm media superiorities for need gratifications on the macro dimension for firstline, middle and top level managers. Small pockets of superiority emerged at each managerial level, but in most cases the superior medium prevailed across levels. Table 20 displays the media superiority results for firstline managers. The Wall Street Journal was superior to the trade press and the four general news media, but no trade press superiority emerged over the general news media. Newspapers, magazines and cable television were superior to broadcast television. Neither medium was superior in the other comparisons. Table 21 presents the Sd and Sm results for middle managers. The macro dimension was composed of only five items, since the "legal" and "mergers" items were not components of the GS resource space for middle managers. Again, the Journal was superior to the trade press and the four general news media, but the trade press was not superior to any of the general news media. Only newspapers and magazines were superior to broadcast television, but magazines were superior to cable for middle managers. Table 22 arrays the media superiority results for the top managers. The macro dimension included seven scales for top managers. The Wall Street Journal was also superior to the four general news media and the trade press. Unlike the other managerial subgroups, the trade press achieved superiority over newspapers and television. Only newspapers and magazines were superior to television. 110 Table 20 Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities Firstline Managers N Sd t Sm t (a) WS>NP 21 2.A5 6.39 *** WS>NP 9.51 7.16 *** .34 1.13 TP=NP 28 1.34 .22 TP=NP 4.77 .17 1.42 4.56 WS>MG 9 2.35 5.54 *** WS>MG 9.12 5.51 *** .19 .69 TP=MG 13 1.05 .04 TP=MG 3.90 .37 1 .07 3.23 WS>TV 12 3.08 10.96 *** WS>TV 11.79 11.45 *** .12 .34 TP=TV 13 1.59 1.91 TP=TV 5.56 1.97 .77 2.35 WS>CA 11 1 .83 2.65 * WS>CA 7.04 2.75 * .40 1.45 CA=TP 16 1.27 1.89 CA=TP 4.54 1.96 .57 1.99 (B) MG=NP 32 .87 .20 MG=NP 3.19 .43 .82 2.80 NP>TV A3 1.41 5.45 *** NP>TV 4.82 5.55 *** .32 .99 NP=CA 36 1.04 .67 NP=CA 3.77 .92 .84 2.79 MG>TV 21 1.50 3.60 ** MG>TV 5.15 3.50 ** .42 1.33 CA=MG 19 .67 .19 CA=MG 2.52 .66 .60 1.66 CA>TV 30 1.42 3.17 ** CA>TV 4.80 3.45 ** .50 1.45 (C) WS>TP 13 1.79 4.50 *** WS>TP 6.11 4.93 *** .26 .98 ** *** * P < .05 p < .01 p < .001 (A) general news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. Ill Table 21 Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities - Mid Managers N Sd t Sm t (A) WS>NP 38 1.73 8.94 *** WS>NP 6.69 8.91 *** .12 .45 NP=TP 30 1.06 1.28 NP=TP 3.55 1.03 .69 2.59 WS>MG 15 1.70 5.78 *** WS>MG 6.56 5.64 *** .14 .52 MG=TP 12 1.21 1.79 MG=TP 4.07 1.73 .35 1.27 WS>TV 19 2.11 6.89 *** WS>TV 8.18 7.10 *** .18 .58 TP=TV 20 1.25 1.17 TP=TV 4.44 1 .21 .77 1.90 WS>CA 23 1.52 5.08 *** WS>CA 5.90 6.58 *** .20 .44 TP=CA 19 .97 .20 TP=CA 3.60 .59 .89 2.81 (B) MG=NP 25 1.07 1.93 MG=NP 3.83 1.92 .51 1.81 NP>TV 41 1.15 4.58 *** NP>TV 3.95 4.59 *** .28 .92 NP=CA 36 .96 .50 NP=CA 3.42 .69 .81 2.70 MG>TV 18 1.43 3.24 ** MG>TV 5.17 3.63 ** .33 1.07 MOCA 15 1.42 2.51 * MOCA 5.19 2.74 * .44 1.36 CA=TV 27 .82 .44 CA=TV 2.55 .34 .67 2.18 (C) WS>TP 25 1 .27 6.00 *** WS>TP 4.86 6.01 *** .13 .47 * P < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001 (A) general news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. 112 Table 22 Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities - Top Managers N Sd t Sm t (A) WS>NP 41 2.66 7.71 *** WS>NP 8.57 7.61 k k k .41 1.49 TP>NP 41 1.58 2.35 * TP>NP 5.66 2.50 k .97 3.36 WS>MG 19 1.86 3.79 ** WS>MG 7.10 3.98 k k k .27 .85 TP=MG 14 1.41 .94 TP=MG 5.37 1.02 .91 3.36 WS>TV 21 2.76 7.35 •kick WS>TV 10.52 8.43 k k k .26 .66 TP>TV 16 2.33 5.15 k k k TP>TV 8.37 5.18 *** .27 .91 WS>CA 23 2.33 7.45 k k k WS>CA 8.63 7.27 k k k .17 .56 TP=CA 18 1.74 1.85 TP=CA 6.05 2.01 .85 2.70 (B) MG=NP 25 1.14 .61 MG=NP 4.22 .67 .91 3.29 NP>TV 41 1.66 7 .00 k k k NP>TV 5.79 6.91 k k k .33 1.02 NP=CA 38 1.19 .86 NP=CA 4.21 .82 .94 3.32 MG>TV 15 1 .97 2.85 k MG>TV 7.10 2.88 k .63 2.15 MG=CA 15 .99 .63 MG=CA 3.39 .56 .74 2.62 CA=TV 26 1.16 1.15 CA=TV 3.93 1.69 .71 1.87 (C) WS>TP 19 1.38 2.28 k WS>TP 4 .97 2 .16 * .47 1.79 * P < .05 ** p < .01 k k k p < .001 (A) general news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. 113 Table 23 gives the power analysis associated with the t-tests for media superiorities in need gratifications on the macro dimension among firstline managers. Large effect sizes and high power characterized the eight statistically significant t-tests, i.e., one medium was superior to the other. Thus, the t-tests had sufficient power to detect the superiorities reported in Table 20. Power was insufficient to reject or accept the null of equivalency for the non-significant t-test results. Table 24 displays the power analysis for the SD and Sm t-test results in the middle manager subgroup. Large effect sizes and high power characterized the eight pairwise comparisons which showed one medium to be superior to the other. In other words, power was sufficient to detect statistically significant media superiorities given in Table 21. Power was insufficient to accept the equivalent null for the non-significant t-tests. Table 25 gives the power analysis for the t-tests of the Sd and Sm pairwise comparisons on the macro dimension among the top managers. Large effect sizes and high power affirmed eight of the nine statistically significant Sd and Sm superiorities. Thus, the Journal was superior to the general news mediums, the trade press over newspapers and television, and newspapers and magazines over television. Power was below the optimum of .80 for the statistically significant WS>TP comparison and power was not sufficient for the non-significant t-tests. Table 23 Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.Q5) for Macro Dimension Firstline Managers Sd Sm N ESPOWER ES P0W1 (A) WS>NP 21 2.AO a 2.75 A TP=NP 28 .07 6 .05 3 WS>MG 9 2.9A ★ 2.98 A TP=MG 13 .02 0 .18 7 WS>TV 12 5.1A * 5.39 A TP-TV 13 .81 50 .86 55 WS>CA 11 1.38 Jc 1 .AA A CA=TP 16 .73 51 .72 50 (B) MG=NP 32 .07 5 .12 8 NP>TV A3 1.36 a 1.39 A NP=CA 36 .20 13 .26 19 MG>TV 21 1.21 97 1.16 97 CA=MG 19 .07 5 .25 12 CA>TV 30 .98 96 1.02 97 (C) WS>TP 13 1.99 * 2.0A A * Power is above .995. (A) general news media versus specialized media (B) general versus general media (C) specialized versus specialized media. Table 24 Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.Q5) for Macro Dimension Mid Managers Sd Sm N ES POWER ES POWER (A) WS>NP 38 2.58 * 2.55 * NP=TP 30 .43 37 .33 24 WS>MG 15 2.71 * 2.64 & MG=TP 12 .92 57 .90 56 WS>TV 19 2.84 * 2.93 * TP=TV 20 .46 2 9 .81 70 WS>CA 23 1.81 * 2.46 * TP=CA 19 .09 6 .25 12 (B) MG=NP 25 .67 64 .68 65 NP>TV 41 1.16 * 1.20 * NP=CA 36 .16 10 .21 14 MG>TV 18 1.36 97 1.53 * MOCA 15 1.13 82 1.23 89 CA=TV 27 .15 9 .11 6 (C) WS>TP 25 1.87 * 1.90 * * Power is above .995. (A) general news media versus specialized media (B) general versus general media (C) specialized versus specialized media. Table 25 Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.Q5) for Macro Dimension Top Managers Sd Sm N ES POWER ES POWER (A) WS>NP 41 2.19 * 2.22 * TP>NP 41 .65 81 .69 86 WS>MG 19 1.48 * 1.57 * TP=MG 14 .45 21 .48 24 WS>TV 21 2.96 * 3.48 * TP>TV 16 2.25 * 2.27 WS>CA 23 2.86 * 2.84 * TP=CA 18 .82 66 .87 71 (B) MG=NP 25 .22 12 .23 12 NP>TV 41 1.85 * 1.83 * NP=CA 38 .25 19 .23 18 MG>TV 15 1.29 92 1.31 93 MG=CA 15 .28 11 .26 10 CA=TV 26 .39 28 .58 55 (C) WS>TP 19 .87 74 .82 69 * Power is above .995. (A) general news media versus specialized media (B) general versus general media (C) specialized versus specialized media. 117 Company Size. Tables 26-27 present the Sd and Sm superiorities and Tables 28-29 give the power analysis results for managers in large or small businesses, i.e., greater or less than 100 employees. The same seven items composed the macro dimension for managers in large and small businesses. Cable was superior to broadcast television among managers in small businesses, but not for large businesses. In eight pairwise comparisons, the superior medium prevailed across both s ubgroups. Table 26 shows the Journal was superior to all four general news media and the trade press for macro need gratifications among managers in large businesses. The trade press, newspapers and magazines were superior to television. However, the trades were superior to television for Sm magnitude, but not in Sd direction. Such an Sd-Sm inconsistency suggests the trade press and television were superior on an equivalent number of scales, but the magnitude of the trade press superiority ratings on those scales was higher than the magnitude of television superiority. Table 27 presents the macro dimension media superiorities for managers in small businesses. The Journal was superior to the trade press and the general news media. Newspapers, magazines and the trade press were superior to television, and both Sd and Sm yielded consistent results. Cable television proved superior to broadcast television in need gratifications for managers in small businesses, although no superiority emerged among managers in large businesses. 118 Table 26 Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Large Businesses N Sd t Sm t (A) WS>NP 48 2.18 8.81 *** WS>NP 8.33 9.14 *** .33 1.20 TP=NP 44 1.23 .42 TP=NP 4.45 .84 1.12 3.76 WS>MG 18 2.24 4.63 *** WS>MG 8.61 5.02 *** .39 1.33 MG=TP 22 1.18 .47 MG=TP 3.92 .11 .98 3.76 WS>TV 25 2.61 7.52 *** WS>TV 9.94 8.37 *** .28 .82 TP=TV 26 1.54 1.76 TP>TV 5.53 2.85 ** .80 1.94 WS>CA 27 1.84 5.23 *** WS>CA 6.81 6.51 *** .27 .69 TP=CA 27 1.16 .55 TP=CA 4.11 .86 .95 3.05 (B) MG=NP 46 1.02 .69 MG=NP 3.71 .74 .84 3.00 NP>TV 62 1.44 6.00 *** NP>TV 4.97 6.05 *** .36 1.16 NP=CA 54 1.01 .04 *** NP=CA 3.69 .23 1.00 3.48 MG>TV 31 1.70 3.81 *** MG>TV 5.96 3.65 *** .52 1.84 MG=CA 27 1.11 1.31 MG=CA 3.55 .91 .64 2.40 CA=TV 47 1.09 1.29 CA=TV 3.74 1.82 .73 2.12 (C) WS>TP 27 1.47 3.82 *** WS>TP 5.47 3.80 *** .40 1.52 * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001 (A) general news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. 119 Table 27 Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Small Businesses N Sd t Sm t (A) WS>NP 52 2.18 10.61 *** WS>NP 8.38 11.09 *** .27 .95 TP=NP 55 1.29 .40 *** TP=NP 4.69 .88 1.19 3.92 WS>MG 25 1.87 7.00 *** WS>MG 7.20 6.85 *** .12 .42 TP=MG 17 1.02 .04 TP=MG 3.74 .25 1.00 3.32 WS>TV 27 2.76 12.52 *** WS>TV 10.60 13.67 *** .13 .35 TP>TV 23 2.08 4.97 *** TP>TV 7.41 4.92 *** .44 1.46 WS>CA 30 2.16 7.84 *** WS>CA 8.31 8.09 *** .20 .71 TP=CA 26 1.25 .33 TP=CA 4.49 .51 1.12 3.76 (B) MG=NP 36 1.09 1.72 MG=NP 3.96 1.87 .66 2.30 NP>TV 63 1.44 8.07 *** NP>TV 4.93 7.76 *** .31 .97 NP=CA 56 1.08 .67 NP=CA 3.79 .53 .92 3.32 MG>TV 23 1.58 4.21 *** MG>TV 5.67 4.56 *** .40 1.20 MG=CA 22 .96 1.23 MG=CA 3.47 1.44 .58 2.04 CA>TV 36 1 .28 2.39 * CA>TV 4.13 2.46 * .54 1.65 (C) WS>TP 30 1.49 5.91 *** WS>TP 5.36 6.01 *** .19 .73 ** ★ p < .05 p < .01 P < •001 (A) general news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. Table 28 presents the power analysis for the macro dimension superiorities among managers in large businesses. Large effects and high power were associated with the statistically significant t-tests. Thus, power was sufficient to reject the null and conclude the Journal was superior to the trade press and the general news media, and that newspapers and magazines were superior to television. Only moderate power characterized the Sd t-test between the trade press and television, but high power with the Sm magnitude superiority of the trade press over television. Effect sizes were small to moderate for the media pair comparisons in which no superiority emerged. Given the cell sizes, power was not sufficient to accept the null of equivalence for these non-significant t-tests. Table 29 gives the power analysis for the Sd and Sm t-tests among managers in small businesses. Large effects and high power characterized the media superiorities for the Journal over the trade press and the general news mediums, and for newspapers and magazines over television. Moderate effect sizes of .68 and .69 obtained in the comparison between cable and broadcast television, but power was above the conventional desired level of .80 and permits rejection of the null of no difference. Power was not sufficient, however, to accept or reject the null of equivalence in the other pairwise comparisons. Table 28 Effect Size (ES) and Power analysis (Alpha=.Q5) for Macro Dimension Large Businesses Sd Sm N ES POWER ES P0W1 (A) WS>NP 48 2.27 * 2.36 * TP=NP 44 .11 7 .22 15 WS>MG 18 1.92 * 2.09 * MG=TP 22 .17 8 .04 2 WS>TV 25 2.65 * 3.04 * TP>TV 26 .61 58 .98 92 WS>CA 27 1.73 * 2.23 * TP=CA 27 .19 11 .28 19 (B) MG=NP 46 .17 14 .19 15 NP>TV 62 1.26 * 1.29 * NP=CA 54 .01 0 .02 0 MG>TV 31 1.15 98 1.10 98 MG=CA 27 .43 33 .30 19 CA=TV 47 .32 32 .45 58 (C) WS>TP 27 1.22 * 1 .18 98 * Power is above .995. (A) specialized versus general news media. (B) general versus general news media. (C) specialized versus specialized media. Table 29 Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.Q5) for Macro Dimension Small Businesses Sd Sm NES POWER ESPOW (A) WS>NP 52 2.60 * 2.77 * TP=NP 55 .10 8 .21 18 WS>MG 25 2.57 * 2.51 * TP=MG 17 .03 0 .10 6 WS>TV 27 4.61 * 4.98 * TP>TV 23 1.75 * 1.72 * WS>CA 30 2.53 * 2.61 * TP=CA 26 .12 7 .18 10 (B) MG=NP 36 .49 54 .52 56 NP>TV 63 1.75 * 1.63 * NP=CA 56 .15 12 .12 9 MG>TV 23 1.46 * 1.61 * MG=CA 22 .43 27 .44 27 CA>TV 36 .68 81 .69 82 (C) WS>TP 30 1.76 * 1.78 * * Power is above .995. (A) specialized versus general news media. (B) general versus general news media. (C) specialized versus specialized media. 123 Type of Industry. Table 30 displays the Sd and Sm media superiorities in macro need gratifications for managers in firms which provide intangible services rather than tangible goods. Since this managerial subgroup comprised nearly 85% of the sample, the niche breadths, overlaps and superiority results closely parallel the Sd and Sm findings for the managerial group as a whole. Competition was the most intense between the Journal and the trade press for managers in service industries, but the Journal retained its position of primacy. The Journal was superior to the four general news mediums, but the trade press was superior only to television. Newspapers, magazines and cable were superior to broadcast television. Table 31 arrays the media pair superiorities in macro need gratifications among managers in manufacturing, construction and agriculture. Since only about 15% of the sample fell into this group, cell sizes were extremely low. However, clear superiorities emerged for the Journal over the trade press and the general news media. The trade press, newspapers and magazines were also superior to broadcast television. Among the generalists two differences in media superiorities can be identified between the the service and non-service mangerial subgroups. No superiority was evident in the tight competition between magazines and cable television for managers in service industries, but magazines were superior to cable television in a somewhat less intense competition for need gratifications for managers in the non-service industries. 12 A Table 30 Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Service Industries N Sd t Sm t (A) WS>NP 79 2.19 12.67 *** WS>NP 8.42 12.71 *** .29 1.05 TP=NP 79 1.21 .30 TP=NP 4.39 .81 1.15 3.85 WS>MG 34 1.96 6.62 *** WS>MG 7.51 6.85 *** .24 .80 MG=TP 31 1.13 .16 TP=MG 3.98 .27 1.07 3.62 WS>TV 40 2.57 10.68 *** WS>TV 9.92 11.92 *** .22 .62 TP>TV 37 1.64 2.82 ** TP>TV 5.97 3.94 *** .71 1.87 WS>CA 43 1.90 8.14 *** WS>CA 7.28 9.43 *** .19 .49 TP=CA 43 1.18 .40 TP=CA 4.32 .85 1.06 3.42 (B) MG=NP 59 1.10 1.48 MG=NP 3.99 1.57 .76 2.70 NP>TV 95 1.44 6.29 *** NP>TV 4.98 7.92 *** .37 1.18 CA=NP 86 1.00 .16 CA=NP 3.45 .12 .97 3.37 MG>TV 38 1.49 3.77 *** MG>TV 5.26 3.68 *** .51 1.76 MG=CA 35 .87 1.32 MG=CA 2.87 .95 .54 2.01 CA>TV 65 1.19 2.68 ** CA>TV 3.94 3.14 ** .60 1.74 (C) WS>TP 42 1.46 5.27 *** WS>TP 5.32 5.24 *** .30 1.13 * p < .05 * * p < .01 *** P < •001 (A) general news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. 125 Table 31 Macro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Non-Service Industries N Sd t Sm t (A) WS>NP 13 2.16 7.25 *** WS>NP 8.11 7.29 *** .13 .46 TP=NP 16 1.39 .44 TP=NP 5.12 .80 1.19 3.85 WS>MG 6 2.39 7.72 *** WS>MG 9.04 5.62 ** .15 .55 MG=TP 8 1.01 .55 MG=TP 3.81 .47 .73 2.87 WS>TV 7 3 .44 30.82 *** WS>TV 12.68 20.19 AAA .05 .16 TP>TV 9 2.31 3.48 TP>TV 8.07 3.84 At* .36 1.04 WS>CA 7 2.95 9.52 *** WS>CA 10.37 9.69 *** .00 .00 CA=TP 7 1.32 .18 CA=TP 4.45 .27 1.17 3.74 (B) MG=NP 9 1.14 .51 MG=NP 4.18 .45 .87 3.27 NP>TV 16 1 .42 4.00 ** NP>TV 4.98 4.15 *** .22 .66 NP=CA 10 1.27 .58 NP=CA 4.42 .54 .88 3.09 MG>TV 7 2.22 3.38 * MG>TV 7.72 3.54 * .26 .89 MOCA 7 2.08 3.71 ** MOCA 6.97 3.87 * * .30 .87 CA=TV 7 1.35 .39 CA=TV 4.12 .39 .95 2.88 (C) WS>TP 13 1.57 4.35 **At WS>TP 5.71 4.57 *** .22 .77 * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .,001 (A) general news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. 126 Table 32 gives the macro dimension power analysis for the pairwise media comparisons among managers in service industries. Large effect sizes and high power again minimized error in rejection of the null for the statistically significant t-tests. A moderate effect size and high power characterized the t-test which showed cable superiority over broadcast television. Low power prevented acceptance or rejection of the null of equivalence for the non-significant media pairs. Table 33 gives the power analysis for the macro dimension Sd and Sm t-tests for managers in non-service industries. Despite small cell sizes, effect sizes and power were high for the statistically significant t-tests. In other words, the Journal superiority over the trade press and the four general news media can also be confirmed among managers in non-service industries. Large effects and high power also upheld the superiority of the trade press, newspapers and magazines over broadcast television for this subgroup. Finally, power was sufficient to detect superiority of magazines over cable television. However, low power prevented acceptance or rejection of the null of equivalence for the other pairwise comparisons. To summarize the macro dimension superiorities: (1) the Journal was superior to the four general news media and the trade press for the total managerial sample and for breakdowns by managerial level, size of company and type of industry; (2) the trade press was superior to television, except among firstline and middle managers; the trade press also achieved superiority over newspapers for top managers; Table 32 Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.Q5) for Macro Dimension Service Industries Sd Sm N ESPOWERES POWER (A) WS>NP 79 2.52 * 2.57 * TP=NP 79 .07 7 .15 16 WS>MG 34 1.90 * 2.01 * MG=TP 31 .05 3 .09 6 WS>TV 40 3.07 * 3.40 * TP>TV 37 .83 93 1.11 * WS>CA 43 2.09 * 2.59 * TP=CA 43 .13 8 .29 27 (B) MG=NP 59 .34 44 .36 45 NP>TV 95 1.33 * 1 .36 * CA=NP 86 .02 2 .05 5 MG>TV 38 1.01 99 .99 98 MG=CA 35 .36 31 .26 18 CA>TV 65 .56 86 .66 96 (C) WS>TP 42 1.32 * 1.29 * *Power is above .995. (A) general news media versus specialized media. (B) general versus general media. (C) specialized versus specialized media. Table 33 Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.Q5) for Macro Dimension Non-Service Industries Sd Sm N ES POWER ES POW (A) WS>NP 13 3.37 * 3.32 * TP=NP 16 .20 8 .35 16 WS>MG 6 A .64 * 3.78 * MG=TP 8 .33 9 .27 8 WS>TV 7 16.10 * 12.50 * TP>TV 9 2.05 * 2.23 * WS>CA 7 3 .64 * 3.67 * CA=TP 7 .13 6 .20 7 (B) MG=NP 9 .30 9 .27 8 NP>TV 16 1.62 * 1 .73 * NP=CA 10 .34 11 .30 10 MG>TV 7 2.27 * 2.31 * M O C A 7 2.45 * 2.63 •k CA=TV 7 .27 8 .27 8 (C) WS>TP 13 1.94 * 2.06 * * Power is above .995. (A) general news media versus specialized media. (B) general versus general media. (C) specialized versus specialized media. 129 (3) newspapers and magazines were superior to broadcast television for the total sample and across all breakdowns; (4) magazines were superior to cable television only for middle managers and in non-service industries; (5) cable was superior to broadcast television for the total sample and among managers in firstline positions, small businesses and in service industry. Micro Dimension Whereas the macro dimension centered on general trends in the business environment external to the firm, the micro dimension reflected a need for information related to the operational or task environment of a firm. The micro dimension featured eight resources available to the population of media organizations. The items included information search to improve the firm's product or service, to pass information along to other people in the company, to aid decision-making, and to keep up with new markets, suppliers, competitors, new technology and managerial styles. The latter item, however, was not part of the micro dimension for middle and top m a n a g e r s . In the following sections, the Sd and Sm media superiority results and accompanying power analysis will be presented first for the total managerial sample. Then the results will be given for the breakdowns by managerial levels, company size and type of business or industry. Table 34 displays the Sd and Sm superiorities of one medium over another on the micro dimension for the total managerial sample. 130 Similar to the macro dimension results, the Journal was superior to all four general news media on the micro dimension. In contrast to its performance on the macro dimension, the trade press was superior to all four general news mediums. Moreover, the trade press also achieved superiority on the micro dimension over the Wall Street Journal . The reversal in macro-micro superiority between the Journal and the trade press was accompanied by new superiorities for newspapers and magazines over cable television on the micro dimension. Newspapers, magazines and cable were superior over broadcast television. Cable achieved a slight margin of superiority over broadcast television. The newspaper-magazine comparison was the only media pair in which no superiority emerged. Table 35 displays the power analysis for the correlated t-tests of the Sd and Sm pairwise media superiorities for the micro dimension for the total managerial sample. With two exceptions large effects and high power characterized the statistically significant t-tests. In the first case, effect size was moderate but power was high for the superiority of newspapers over cable television. In the second instance, a small to medium effect size but low power was associated with the cable television superiority over broadcast television. Power and effect size were also low for the non-significant t-test between newspapers and magazines. Thus, power was inadequate to reject the null of no difference for newspapers versus magazines as well as for the superiority of cable over broadcast television. 131 Table 34 Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities N Sd t Sm t (A) WS>NP 100 1.81 3.56 ** WS>NP 6.03 7.96 ** .47 1.57 TP>NP 99 2.54 10.95 *** TP>NP 9.50 12.30 *** .46 1.38 WS>MG 43 1.66 5.29 *** WS>MG 5.38 5.39 *** .39 1.28 TP>MG 39 2.06 4.08 *** TP>MG 7.78 4.34 *** .59 2.01 WS>TV 52 2.54 10.32 *** WS>TV 8.42 10.11 *** .27 .84 TP>TV 49 2.67 8.70 *** TP>TV 9.84 10.81 *** .32 .65 WS>CA 57 1.93 7.68 *** WS>CA 6.51 8.15 *** .24 .64 TP>CA 53 2.62 9.08 *** TP>CA 9.43 10.23 k k k .35 .94 (B) MG=NP 82 1.13 1.14 MG=NP 3.73 1.60 .87 2.72 NP>TV 125 1.25 7.75 k k k NP>TV 3.89 7.69 k k k .32 .89 NP>CA 110 1.28 3.56 ** NP>CA 4.05 3.49 k k .71 2.20 MG>TV 54 1.66 4.08 *** MG>TV 5.37 4.21 k k k .64 1.92 MOCA 49 1.32 3.64 *** M O C A 4.12 3.93 k k k .52 1.41 CA>TV 83 1.07 2.11 k CA>TV 3.28 2.28 k .67 1.91 (C) TP>WS 57 1.73 4.83 k k k TP>WS 6.36 5.08 k k k .57 1.94 * P < .05 k k p < .01 k k k p < .001 (A) General news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general news media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. 132 Table 35 Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.Q5) for Micro Dimension Sd Sm N ES POWER ES POWER (A) WS>NP 100 1.44 * 1.38 * TP>NP 99 1.96 * 2.19 * WS>MG A3 1.37 98 1.39 98 TP>MG 39 1.13 98 1.20 * WS>TV 52 2.60 * 2.47 TP>TV A9 2.17 * 2.81 * WS>CA 57 1.72 * 1.83 * TP>CA 53 2.15 * 2.49 * (B) MG=NP 82 .26 18 .30 25 NP>TV 125 1.09 * 1.11 * NP>CA 110 .56 92 .56 92 MG>TV 54 .98 98 .98 98 MOCA 49 .89 95 .98 99 CA>TV 83 .37 43 .41 48 (C) TP>WS 57 1.08 * 1.13 * * Power is above .995 (A) General news media versus specialized media (B) general versus general news media (C) specialized versus specialized. 133 Managerial Levels. Table 36 gives the Sd and Sm results across the micro dimension among firstline managers. The Journal and trade press were superior to all four general news media. However, neither medium was superior in the comparison between the Journal and the trade press. Newspapers, magazines and cable outperformed broadcast television. Neither medium achieved superiority in the cable television comparisons with newspapers or magazines nor between newspapers and magazines. Table 37 displays the media superiorities for the micro dimension among middle managers. The trade press was superior to the Journal, newspapers, cable and broadcast television, but not magazines. The Journal, however, outperformed all four general news mediums. Newspapers were superior to television. Newspapers achieved marginal superiority over cable television in magnitude, but not for the Sd measure. No superiority emerged in the other media comparisons. Table 38 arrays the media superiorities for the micro dimension among the top managers. With the exception of magazines the Journal was superior to the general news media, while the trade press was superior to the Journal and all four general news media. Newspapers were superior to broadcast and cable television. Magazines were superior to cable television in both direction and magnitude, but only in direction over broadcast television. No superiority was evident between newspapers and magazines, nor between cable and broadcast television. 134 Table 36 Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities ^ Firstline Managers N Sd t Sm t (A) WS>NP 20 2.33 5.71 *** WS>NP 8.24 6.01 *** .39 1.15 TP>NP 26 2.79 6.42 *** TP>NP 10.60 7.34 *** .48 1.43 WS>MG 8 2.36 3.64 ** WS>MG 7.86 3.70 ** .36 1.13 TP>MG 12 2.49 2.83 * TP>MG 9.54 2.94 * .54 1.92 WS>TV 12 3.05 6.24 *** WS>TV 10.64 6.93 *** .24 .71 TP>TV 13 3.02 7.18 *** TP>TV 11.03 7.36 *** .29 .73 WS>CA 11 2.16 3.53 ** WS>CA 7.31 3.82 ** .29 .78 TP>CA 15 2.59 4.33 *** TP>CA 9.54 4.34 *** .38 1.25 (B) MG=NP 31 1.07 1.29 MG=NP 3.73 1.73 .71 2.12 NP>TV 43 1.01 2.95 ** NP>TV 3.15 3.05 ** .42 1.17 NP=CA 35 1.16 1.59 NP=CA 3.42 1.47 .70 2.17 MG>TV 21 1.45 3.43 ** MG>TV 4.47 3.42 ** .42 1.22 MG=CA 19 1.26 2.09 MG=CA 3.64 1.84 .57 1.76 CA>TV 30 1.24 2.09 * CA>TV 3.98 2.30 * .57 1.66 (C) TP=WS 11 1.76 1.35 TP=WS 6.40 1.38 .79 2.78 * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001 (A) general news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. 135 Table 37 Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities Mid Managers N Sd t Sm t (A) WS>NP 38 1.43 4.35 *** WS>NP 4.75 4.26 *** .43 1.47 TP>NP 30 1.98 3.33 ** TP>NP 7.58 4.17 *** .68 1.99 WS>MG 15 1.48 4.31 *** WS>MG 4.52 3.86 ** .23 .85 TP=MG 12 1.51 .81 TP=MG 5.75 1.00 .95 2.56 WS>TV 19 2.21 8.44 *** WS>TV 6.88 8.21 *** .10 .23 TP>TV 20 2.14 3.72 ** TP>TV 7.97 5.71 *** .39 .54 WS>CA 23 1.58 4.06 *** WS>CA 5.13 4.73 *** .24 .54 TP>CA 19 2.30 4.02 *** TP>CA 8.52 5.58 *** .49 1.15 (B) MG=NP 25 1.00 .13 MG=NP 3.29 .24 .96 3.02 NP>TV 41 1.26 5.20 *** NP>TV 3.95 5.54 *** .22 .57 NP=CA 36 1.16 1.81 NP>CA 3.78 2.25 * .69 1.91 MG=TV 18 1.60 1.56 MG=TV 5.31 1.68 .82 2.50 MG=CA 15 1.16 1.20 MG=CA 3.84 1.79 .62 1.46 CA=TV 27 1.04 1.23 CA=TV 3.12 1.26 .61 1.77 (C) TP>WS 25 1.67 3.00 ** TP>WS 6.19 3.45 ** .44 1.47 ** * P < .05 p < .01 P < •001 (A) general news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. 136 Table 38 Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities ^ Top Managers N Sd t Sm t (A) WS>NP A 1 1.50 3.70 *** WS>NP 4.88 3.47 ** .50 1.72 TP>NP 41 2.51 11.35 *** TP>NP 9.18 11.04 *** .24 .79 WS=MG 19 1.18 1.71 WS=MG 3.93 1.93 .53 1.63 TP>MG 14 1.94 4.19 ** TP>MG 7.11 4.21 ** .18 .62 WS>TV 21 2.08 4.10 *** WS>TV 7.20 3.98 *** .48 1.55 TP>TV 16 2.51 6.24 *** TP>TV 9.33 5.89 *** .14 .50 WS>CA 23 1.81 5.32 *** WS>CA 6.38 5.00 *** .16 .58 TP>CA 18 2.50 8.00 *** TP>CA 8.70 7.93 *** .10 .29 (B) MG=NP 25 1.12 .35 MG=NP 3.63 .35 .99 3.18 NP>TV 41 1.22 4.50 *** NP>TV 3.82 4.22 *** .32 .95 NP>CA 38 1.28 2.21 * NP>CA 4.27 2.02 * .66 2.27 MG>TV 15 1.55 2.16 * MG=TV 5.09 2.11 .62 1.95 MOCA 15 1.34 3.12 ** MOCA 4.19 3.01 ** .31 .94 it H < > n 26 .79 .48 TV=CA 2.15 .12 .65 2.04 (C) TP>WS 19 1.29 2.41 * TP>WS .73 2.50 * .47 1.63 * AAA p < .05 ** p < .01 p < • 001 (A) general news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. 137 Table 39 presents the power analysis for the micro dimension media superiorities among the firstline managers. Power was sufficient to support ten of the statistically significant t-tests. Despite a medium effect size, power was not sufficient to conclude that cable was superior to commercial television for a cell size of N=30. Low power also prevented acceptance of the null of equivalence for the non-significant t-tests. In fact, effect sizes were large for two of these comparisons (WS-TP and MG-CA), and illustrated the impact of cell size on power. A small effect and low power characterized the newspaper and magazine comparison. Table AO shows that large effects and high power were associated with the statistically significant t-tests for media superiority among middle managers, and the null of no difference was rejected. Small to medium effects characterized the non-significant t-tests, and power was not sufficient to reject or accept the null of equivalence. Table A1 gives the power analysis for the media superiorities on the micro dimension for the subgroup of top managers. Large effect sizes and high power confirmed ten of the significant t-tests. Power was sub-optimum, however, and negated the conclusion that newspapers were superior to cable television or that magazines were superior to broadcast television. A cell size of N=38 provided insufficient power to detect the medium effect recorded for newspapers versus cable, and N=15 was insufficient to detect a large effect for magazines superior to broadcast television. Power was also not sufficient to accept or reject the null of equivalence for the non-significant t-tests. Table 39 Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alphac.Q5) for Micro Dimension Firstline Managers Sd Sm N ES POWER ES POWER (A) WS>NP 20 1.23 96 1.13 90 TP>NP 26 2.26 * 2.55 * WS>MG 8 2.42 * 2.48 * TP>MG 12 1.41 91 1.49 93 WS>TV 12 1.98 * 1.89 * TP>TV 13 3.52 * 3.60 * WS>CA 11 1.94 * 2.09 * TP>CA 15 2.05 * 2.01 * (B) MG=NP 31 .36 27 .48 47 NP>TV 43 .66 83 .70 89 NP=CA 35 .45 46 .41 39 MG>TV 21 1.20 97 1 .19 96 MG=CA 19 .83 70 .71 56 CA>TV 30 .63 66 .69 76 (C) TP=WS 12 .70 37 .72 39 * Power is above .995. (A) general news media versus specialized media (B) general versus general media (C) specialized versus specialized media. Table 40 Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.Q5) for Micro Dimension Mid Managers Sd Sm N ESPOWERES POWER (A) WS>NP 38 1.19 * 1.13 * TP>NP 30 1.11 98 1.38 k WS>MG 15 1.80 * 1.56 * TP=MG 12 .43 17 .52 22 WS>TV 19 3.46 * 3.42 * TP>TV 20 1.52 * 2.40 * WS>CA 23 1.46 * 1.72 * TP>CA 19 1.76 * 2.40 * (B) MG=NP 25 .04 0 .08 .5 NP>TV 41 1.38 * 1.48 * NP=CA 36 .51 56 .65 77 MG=TV 18 .67 48 .72 55 MG=CA 15 .53 28 .81 56 CA=TV 27 .40 30 .41 30 (C) TP>WS 25 1.27 * 1.32 * * Power is above .995. (A) general news media versus specialized media (B) general versus general media (C) specialized versus specialized media. 140 Table 41 Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.Q5) for Micro Dimension ^ Top Managers Sd Sm N ES POWER ES POWER (A) WS>NP 41 1.06 * .96 98 TP>NP 41 3.05 * 2.97 * WS=MG 19 .66 49 .74 60 TP>MG 14 1.98 * 2.01 * WS>TV 21 1.63 * 1.58 * TP>TV 16 2.72 * 2.59 * WS>CA 23 1.88 * 1.74 * TP>CA 18 3.26 * 3.26 * (B) MG=NP 25 .12 7 .12 7 NP>TV 41 1.15 * 1.09 * NP>CA 38 .61 74 .54 64 MG>TV 15 1.03 78 .98 73 MOCA 15 1.45 98 1.41 97 TV=CA 26 .15 8 .05 3 (C) TP>WS 19 .97 83 1.00 85 * Power is above .995. (A) general news media versus specialized media (B) general versus general media (C) specialized versus specialized media. 141 Company Size. Tables 42-43 present the media superiorities for the micro dimension for managers in large and small businesses, i.e., greater or less than 100 employees. An identical pattern of media superiorities emerged in both categories. The specialists were superior over the generalists and the trade press over the Journal for micro need gratifications for managers in both large and small businesses. Among the generalists the print media dominated the electronic media. No superiority emerged between newspapers and magazines, and cable edged broadcast television only on the Sm measure. Table 44 gives the power analysis for the correlated t-tests of media superiority on the micro dimension for managers in large businesses. With one exception, the t-tests which showed one medium superior to another were supported by high power. Power was below the optimum of .80 for the newspaper superiority over cable television. The t-tests, which did not warrant rejecting the null, did not have sufficient power to accept the null of equivalence. Table 45 displays the power analysis for the Sd and Sm media superiorities on the micro dimension for the managers in small businesses. High power was associated with the t-tests which showed one medium superior to another. Although high power characterized the Sm t-test for the comparison between magazines and cable television, the Sd measure had less than the optimal power of .80. Power was not sufficient to accept the null of equivalence for non-significant t-tests. 1A2 Table A2 Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Large Businesses N Sd t Sm t (A) WS>NP A8 1.75 A. 76 aaa WS>NP 5.7A A.6A aaa .56 1.8A TP>NP AA 2.A7 7.18 *** TP>NP 9.15 9.50 *** . A6 1.17 WS>MG 18 2.29 A . 55 *** WS>MG 7.32 5.03 AAA .38 1.03 TP>MG 22 1.97 2.5A * TP>MG 7.A0 2.76 * .70 2.35 WS>TV 25 2.29 A.95 AAA WS>TV 7.A1 A . 72 AAA .A 1 1.27 TP>TV 26 2.69 A.87 *** TP>TV 9.86 7.07 ** A: .50 .88 WS>CA 27 1.78 A.08 AAA WS>CA 5.88 A.81 AAA .31 .69 TP>CA 27 2.A8 A.81 AAA TP>CA 9.00 6.20 AAA . A6 1.07 (B) MG=NP A6 1.07 .65 MG=NP 3.63 .80 .90 2.90 NP>TV 62 1.33 5.72 AAA NP>TV A . 23 5.73 AAA .30 .85 NP>CA 5A 1.17 2.00 A NP>CA 3.81 2.A1 A .71 2.10 MG>TV 31 1.7A 3.3A AA MG>TV 5.68 3.11 AA .57 1.85 M O C A 27 1.38 2.81 AA MOCA A . 35 2.A9 A .51 1.66 CA=TV A7 1.15 1.87 CA>TV 3.68 2.09 A .65 1.88 (C) TP>WS 27 1 .7A 3.73 AAA TP>WS 6.A8 A . 16 AAA .52 1.65 * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001 (A) general news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. 143 Table 43 Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Small Businesses N Sd t Sm t (A) WS>NP 52 1.87 7.05 *** WS>NP 6.29 6.72 k k k .39 1.32 TP>NP 55 2.59 8.19 k k k TP>NP 9.79 8.51 k k k .46 1.54 WS>MG 25 1.21 3.20 ** WS>MG 3.99 3.04 k k .41 1.47 TP>MG 17 2.19 3.37 ** TP>MG 8.27 3.41 k k .44 1.58 WS>TV 27 2.76 12.43 *** WS>TV 9.35 12.04 k k k .15 .44 TP>TV 23 2.63 8.66 k k k TP>TV 9.83 8.44 k k k .12 .38 WS>CA 30 2.06 7.00 *** WS>CA 7.08 6.62 k k k .17 .59 TP>CA 26 2.76 8.96 *** TP>CA 9.88 8.64 k k k .25 .81 (B) MG=NP 36 1.19 1.35 MG=NP 3.86 1.59 .84 2.49 NP>TV 63 1.18 5.00 *** NP>TV 3.56 4.94 k k k .33 .94 NP>CA 56 1 .38 2.96 k k NP>CA 4.28 2.51 k .70 2.30 MG>TV 23 1.56 2.40 k MG>TV 4.95 2.88 k k .72 2.01 MOCA 22 1.24 2.19 k MOCA 3.82 3.30 k k .54 1.11 CA=TV 36 .96 .93 CA=TV 2.74 .99 .70 1.94 (C) TP>WS 30 1.72 3.26 k k TP>WS 6.26 3.13 k k .61 2.19 A p < .05 k k p < .01 AAA P < •001 (A) general news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. Table 44 Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.Q5) for Micro Dimension Large Businesses Sd Sm NESPOWER ESPOWER (A) WS>NP 48 1.21 * 1.15 * TP>NP 44 1.93 * 2.52 * WS>MG 18 1.88 * 2.08 * TP>MG 22 .95 85 1.04 91 WS>TV 25 1.83 * 1.70 * TP>TV 26 1.79 * 2.60 * WS>CA 27 1.35 * 1.65 * TP>CA 27 1.64 * 2.14 * (B) MG=NP 46 .16 12 .19 15 NP>TV 62 1.17 * 1.18 * NP>CA 54 .44 61 .53 77 MG>TV 31 1.05 98 .95 95 M O C A 27 .96 93 .85 85 CA=TV 47 .46 58 .50 68 (C) TP>WS 27 1.17 98 2.21 * * Power is above .995. (A) general news media versus specialized media. (B) general versus general media. (C) specialized versus specialized media. Table 45 Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.Q5) for Micro Dimension Small Businesses Sd Sm NESPOWERES POWER (A) WS>NP 52 1.68 * 1.60 * TP>NP 55 1.98 * 2.02 * WS>MG 25 1.07 94 .98 91 TP>MG 17 1.40 98 1.40 98 WS>TV 27 4.01 * 3.93 * TP>TV 23 3.16 * 3.13 * WS>CA 30 2.14 * 2.01 * TP>CA 26 3.02 * 2.92 it (B) MG=NP 36 .38 36 .46 45 NP>TV 63 1.03 * 1.04 * NP>CA 56 .67 92 .57 82 MG>TV 23 .90 83 1.06 92 MOCA 22 .78 71 1.23 98 CA=TV 36 .25 18 .27 19 (C) TP>WS 30 1.00 97 .98 96 *Power is above .995. (A) general news media versus spec i (B) general versus general media. (C) specialized versus specialized media. 146 Type of Industry. Table 46 gives the media superiorities for the micro dimension for managers in service industries. The media with specialist domains outperformed the media with generalist domains, and the trade press was superior to the Journal . Among the generalists, the print media were superior competitors to the electronic media. Cable was superior to broadcast television, but no superiority was registered between newspapers and magazines. Table 47 arrays the Sd and Sm results for the micro dimension for managers in non-service industries which produce tangible goods, i.e., manufacturing, construction and agribusiness. The Journal and trade press were superior to the four general news media, and the trade press outperformed the Journal . Newspapers maintained their edge over television, but no other superiorities were registered among the general news media. Table 48 shows high power accompanies the fourteen statistically significant media superiorities among managers in service industries. In the comparison between cable and broadcast television, power was .85 for Sm but a below minimum .78 for the Sd t-test. Power was not sufficient to accept or reject the null for newspapers versus magazines. With one exception the power analysis in Table 49 confirms the superiorities among managers in non-service industries. Although the trade press differed from magazines by more than one standard deviation, the small cell size limited power to a sub-optimal level. Power was not sufficient in the non-significant t-tests to accept or reject the null. 147 Table 46 Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Service Industries N Sd t Sm t (A) WS>NP 79 1.82 7.11 *** WS>NP 6.15 6.98 *** .47 1.61 TP>NP 79 2.50 9.00 •kick TP>NP 9.37 10.28 k k k .52 1.56 WS>MG 34 1.56 3.83 ■kkk WS>MG 4.99 3.90 k k k .45 1.48 TP>MG 31 2.22 3.52 k k TP>MG 8.41 3.79 k k k .67 2.31 wsxrv 40 2.43 9.00 k k k WS>TV 8.13 9.36 k k k .27 .27 TP>TV 37 2.55 6.67 k k k TP>TV 9.49 9.22 k k k .35 .64 WS>CA 43 1.97 7.50 k k k WS>CA 6.72 8.36 k k k .17 .37 TP>CA 43 2.70 7.73 k k k TP>CA 9.82 9.17 k k k .38 1.02 (B) MG=NP 59 1.23 1.48 MG=NP 4.17 1.71 .89 2.82 NP>TV 95 1.26 5.53 k k k NP>TV 3.92 6.59 k k k .32 .89 NP>CA 86 1.25 3.17 k k NP>CA 4.04 3.33 k k .68 2.11 MG>TV 38 1.67 3.75 k k k MG>TV 5.44 3.48 k k .62 1.96 M O C A 35 1.31 3.74 k k k MOCA 4.16 3.84 k k k .45 1.28 CA>TV 65 1.09 2.33 k CA>TV 3.37 2.58 k .60 1.69 (C) TP>WS 42 1.67 3.72 k k k TP>WS 6.10 3.86 k k k .59 2.05 * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001 (A) general news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. 148 Table 47 Micro Dimension Media Pair Superiorities for Managers in Non-Service Industries N Sd t Sm t (A) WS>NP 13 1.98 4.61 *** WS>NP 5.99 4.54 *** .32 .91 TP>NP 16 2.80 7.29 •kick TP>NP 6.70 k k k .25 .74 WS>MG 6 2.14 5.30 k k WS>MG 7.07 4.98 k k .18 .65 TP>MG 8 1.44 2.43 k TP>MG 5.36 2.44 k .25 .87 WS>TV 7 3.23 12.23 k k k WS>TV 9.62 9.64 k k k .00 .00 TP>TV 9 3.40 10.77 k k k TP>TV 12.28 9.66 k k k .06 .11 WS>CA 7 2.18 3.22 k WS>CA 6.86 3.10 k .15 .47 TP>CA 7 2.66 5.70 k k TP>CA 9.27 4.97 k k .21 .63 (B) MG=N" 9 1.15 .73 MG=NP 3.62 .83 .70 1.96 NP>TV 16 1.33 3.77 k k NP>TV 3.86 3.99 k k .20 .59 NP=CA 10 1.38 .61 NP=CA 3.82 .24 .95 3.28 MG=TV 7 1.96 1.30 MG=TV 5.92 1.42 .66 1.80 MG=CA 7 1.77 1.57 MG=CA 5.08 2.30 .43 .43 CA=TV 7 1.22 .47 CA=TV 3.07 .42 .79 2.04 (C) TP>WS 13 1 .98 3.17 k k TP>WS 7.39 3.26 k k .52 1.62 * k k p < .05 p < .01 *** P < •001 (A) general news media versus specialized media, (B) general versus general media, (C) specialized versus specialized media. Table 48 Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.Q5) for Micro Dimension Service Industries Sd Sm NES POWERES POWER (A) WS>NP 79 1 .42 * 1.37 * TP>NP 79 1.81 * 2.07 it WS>MG 34 1.12 99 1.12 99 TP>MG 31 1.14 98 1 .22 98 WS>TV 40 2.54 * 2.45 * TP>TV 37 1.93 * 2.76 * WS>CA 43 1.93 * 2.25 * TP>CA 43 2.10 * 2.52 * (B) MG=NP 59 .34 41 .38 45 NP>TV 95 1 .09 * 1.11 * NP>CA 86 .58 97 .60 98 MG>TV 38 1.05 99 .96 98 MOCA 35 1.12 99 1.14 99 CA>TV 65 .48 78 .54 85 (C) TP>WS 42 .97 98 1.00 99 * Power is above .995. (A) general news media versus specialized media. (B) general versus general media. (C) specialized versus specialized media. 150 Table 49 Effect Size (ES) and Power Analysis (Alpha=.05) for Micro Dimension ^ Non-Service Industries Sd Sm NES POWERES P0W (A) WS>NP 13 1.94 * 1.87 * TP>NP 16 3.04 * 2.95 * WS>MG 6 3.21 * 3.30 * TP>MG 8 1.30 67 1.33 68 WS>TV 7 4.61 * 3.64 * TP>TV 9 6.36 * 6.14 * WS>CA 7 2.28 * 2.20 * TP>CA 7 3.31 * 3.03 * (B) MG=NP 9 .39 12 .46 14 NP>TV 16 1.49 98 1.53 98 NP=CA 10 .35 11 .14 6 MG=TV 7 .88 35 .95 41 MG=CA 7 .99 45 1.56 85 CA=TV 7 .30 9 .26 8 (C) TP>WS 13 1.45 94 1.53 95 * Power is above .995. (A) general news media versus specialized media. (B) general versus general media. (C) specialized versus specialized media. 151 Summary. Table 50 presents a summary of the macro and micro dimension media superiorities. Seven of the statistically significant superiorities were omitted, because power was insufficient. These included one macro dimension superiority WS>TP for top managers; and six micro dimension superiorities TP>MG non-service industries, NP>CA for managers at top levels and in large businesses, MG>TV for top managers, and CA>TV for the total sample and firstline managers. As shown in Table 50, more superiority occurs on the micro than on the macro dimension. One medium achieved supremacy over another in fourteen of the fifteen pairwise comparisons on the micro dimension for the total sample, but in nine of fifteen on the macro dimension. While trade press superiority on the macro dimension was limited to broadcast television, micro superiorities appeared over all four general news media. Similarly, newspapers and magazines scored more superiorities on the micro than on the macro dimension. Print media also appear to predominate over broadcast and cable television. Of the fifteen pairwise comparisons, eight involved print versus electronic media pairs. In each case the print medium was superior. A complex pattern of organization among the population can also be discerned. On the macro dimension, the Journal achieved the most widespread superiority followed by magazines and newspapers, the trade press and cable. On the micro dimension the trade press publications were superior to all other five competitors, followed by the Journal , newspapers, magazines, cable and broadcast television. 152 Table 50 Power Analysis Summary of Macro and Micro Superiorities MACRO DIMENSION MGR LEVEL SIZEINDUSTRY ALLFM TLSSG WS-TPWS WS WSWSWS WSWSWS WS-NPWSWSWS WSWSWSWS WS WS-MGWSWSWSWS WSWS WSWS WS-CA WSWS WSWSWS WSWSWS WS-TV WSWSWSWS WS WSWSWS TP-NPTP TP-MG TP-CA TP-TVTPTP TPTPTP TP NP-MG NP-TVNPNPNP NPNPNPNP NP NP-CA MG-TV MGMG MGMG MGMGMGMG MG-CA MG MG CA-TV CA CA CA CA MICRO DIMENSION WS-TP TPTPTP TPTP TPTP WS-NPWSWSWSWS WSWSWS WS WS-MGWSWS WSWSWS WSWS WS-CAWSWSWS WSWSWSWSWS WS-TV WSWS WSWSWS WSWSWS TP-NP TPTPTPTPTP TPTP TP TP-MGTPTP TPTPTP TP TP-CATPTPTPTP TPTPTP TP TP-TVTPTPTPTP TPTP TPTP NP-MG NP-TVNPNPNPNP NPNPNPNP NP-CANP NP NP MG-TVMGMG MGMGMG MG-CAMG MGMGMGMG CA-TV CA F=firstline M=mid manager T=top manger L=large S=small company size S=service G=goods industry 153 Nontheless, it is incorrect to speak of winners and losers in the competitive relations among a population of organizational forms, since survival of an organizational form is a matter of relative superiority or at least equivalence with other competitors in the resource space. Moreover, in a multi-dimensional niche the relative superiorities must be considered both within and between dimensions. Briefly, four outcomes are possible: (1) bidimensional - a medium could be superior on both dimensions, (2) dimensional reversal - medium i may be superior on one dimension and medium j on the other dimension, (3) unidimensional - medium i or j may be superior on only one dimension, and (A) neither medium is superior. (1) In the first category the Wall Street Journal , the trade press, newspapers and magazines achieved superiority on both dimensions. The Journal was more widely superior over all four general news media on the macro and micro dimensions. The trade press, newspapers and magazines achieved dual dimensional superiority over only one medium - television. Cable achieved a small pocket of superiority on both dimensions with broadcast television for managers in service industries. (2) Only the Journal and the trade press were superior on opposite dimensions and fell into the second category. The Journal was superior to the trade press on the macro dimension across all breakdowns (except top managers, where power was insufficient). In contrast, the trade press was superior to the Journal on the micro 154 dimension. (3) The trade press Is the prime example of superiority on one dimension, but no superiority on the other dimension. The trade press was superior to newspapers, magazines and cable television on the micro dimension but not superior on the macro dimension (with the exception of macro superiority over newspapers for top managers). Newspapers reached micro but not macro superiority over cable television for the total sample and managers in small companies and service industries. Magazines had macro but not micro superiority to cable televsion for middle managers and in non-service industries. Magazines had micro but not macro superiority over cable for the total sample, top managers, large and small companies and service industries. Cable had macro but not micro superiority to broadcast television for the total sample, firstline managers and small companies. (4) Only newspapers and magazines were in the fourth category with neither medium superior on both dimensions. While these results demonstrate variation in the relative superiorities in managerial need gratifications among the population of media organizations, these findings must be interpreted in the light of the niche breadths and overlaps. The next chapter will summarize the results of the study. The final chapter will also discuss the limitations of the study, the implications of the findings and suggest areas for future research. CHAPTER VI RESULTS: SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION This chapter will first summarize the results then discuss the limitations and strengths of the study, theoretical and practical implications of the findings, and suggest areas for future research. Summary This section will summarize then synthesize the findings pertaining to niche dimensionality, niche breadth and overlap, and media superiorities. By combining social ecology theory with a uses and gratifications perspective, the study sought to address the overall question of how the managerial collectivity in the social environment supports a diverse population of media organizations offering business news content. Niche Dimensionality. Factor analysis of the sixteen items generated from the pilot study yielded a two dimensional pattern of managerial needs for macro and micro enivronmental information. These dimensions were used to define the resource space available to the population of media organizations offering business news content. Seven items composed the macro dimension in the resource space 155 156 and represented a need to keep up with trends in the business environment external to the firm. The items included keeping up with national, international, legal, economic and financial trends in mergers, taxes and stocks. The micro dimension reflected a need for information related to the operational or task environment of a firm. The micro dimension items focused on information to improve the firm's product or service, to pass information along to other people in the company, to aid decision-making, and to learn about new market opportunities, suppliers, competitors, new technology and managerial s t y l e s . The macro and micro dimensions of managerial information needs differed slightly by managerial levels, but not by size of company or type of business or industry. Gratifications obtained from each of the six media followed the same macro and micro dimensional patterns. Since gratifications obtained represent the extent to which each medium utilizes the resources available on the macro and micro dimensions, the GO items were used to calculate the niche breadths, niche overlaps and superiority measures for each dimension. Niche Breadth and Overlap. The niche breadths and overlaps showed three distinctive macro and micro dimensional patterns of ecological differentiation and similarity in need gratifications among the organizational forms with generalist and specialist domains. First, on the macro dimension the Wall Street Journal was the most undifferentiated and exhibited the broadest niche, the least overlap with the general news media, and shared more similarity in need 157 gratifications with the trade press. On the micro dimension the trade press had the broadest niche and was least similar to the general news media, but shared more similarity with the Journal . Thus, competition was less intense between the generalists and the Journal on the macro dimension and the trade press on the micro dimension, but more intense between the specialists on both dimensions. Second, macro niche breadths for the trade press and general news media were narrower and nearly equivalent, and niche overlaps showed more macro dimensional similarity. On the micro dimension, however, the Journal was broader niched than the general news media and micro overlaps showed less similarity. Thus, competition was more intense between the trade press and the general news media (particularly cable television and news magazines) for resource space on the macro dimension, than between the Journal and the general news media on the micro dimension. Third, the general news media had broader macro than micro niches, which indicated the general news media provide more a wider range of macro than micro need gratifications for managers seeking business news and information. The highest overlaps on both dimensions were recorded among the generalists. Cable television was engaged in more intense competition across both dimensions with news magazines and broadcast television, while newspapers and television were close competitors on the micro dimension. These patterns persisted across breakdowns by size of company and type of industry with a few differences across managerial levels. 158 Among firstline managers, for example, competition was lowest between the Journal and all other media, but highest among the general news media. On the other hand, trade press macro need gratifications were highly dissimilar to all other media for top managers. Media Superiorities. Four patterns of relative superiority emerged: (1) bidimensional superiority, (2) dimensional reversal in superiority, (3) unidimensional superiority, and (4) no superiority on either dimension. Each of these patterns was acccompanied by a characteristic configuration of niche breadths and niche overlaps. (1) Bidimensional superiority was achieved by the Journal over the general news media. Macro overlaps were lower than micro overlaps between the Journal and the general news media, but the Journal's higher niche breadth prevailed on both dimensions. The trade press, newspapers and magazines were generally superior to broadcast television on both dimensions. Trade press overlaps with television were uniformly lower than newspaper or magazine overlaps with television, but television had the lowest niche breadth on both dimensions. Small pockets of bidimensional superiority appeared for cable over broadcast television among managers in service industries, and for the trade press over newspapers for top managers. The overlaps between cable and broadcast television for managers in service industries were among the lowest for all subgroups and indicated intense competition, but the niche breadth for cable television was higher than for broadcast television. Among top managers the trade 159 press was superior to newspapers. The overlap of 1.46 was the lowest for any of the comparisons between these two mediums and niche breadths were nearly identical. (2) The only dimensional reversal found the Journal superior to the trade press on the macro dimension, while the trade press was superior to the Journal on the micro dimension. Although the overlaps indicated rather intense competition between these two mediums, the Journal had the highest macro niche breadth and the trade press had the highest micro niche breadth. (3) Unidimensional superiority characterized the trade press comparisons with cable and magazines, the magazine and newspaper comparisons with cable, and cable versus broadcast television. The broader niched trtde press was superior to cable and magazines in their less intense competition on the micro, but not on the macro dimension where competition was more intense and niche breadths were nearly equal among these media. Magazines achieved macro superiority over cable television for mid level managers and in non-service industries, but micro superiority among managers at top levels, in large and small companies and in service industries. Lower overlaps characterized these relationships on the macro dimension, but higher overlaps indicated more intense competition on the micro dimension. Magazines, however, were more broad niched than cable on both dimensions for these sub g r o u p s . 160 Newspapers achieved micro but not macro dimensional superiority over cable for the total sample and among managers in small businesses and service industries. Micro dimension niche overlaps hovered just above and below 1.0 in these comparisons and the newspaper niche breadths exceeded those of cable. Macro dimension overlaps were slightly lower and niche breadths more identical, and no superiority e m e r g e d . Cable claimed macro superiority, but not micro, to broadcast television for managers in small businesses. The macro overlap was .91, but cable television had a broader niche. Competition was more intense on the micro dimension with an overlap of .76, niche breadths were nearly identical, and no superiority emerged. (4) With high overlaps and nearly equal niche breadths no superiority emerged between newspapers and magazines for any of the comparisons on either dimension. In sum, when niche overlaps were lower, the broader niched form was generally superior to the narrow niched form. When niche overlaps were relatively high between broader and narrower niched mediums, unidimensional or reverse dimensional superiority was observed. When overlap was relatively high between two mediums with nearly identical niche breadths, no superiority usually emerged. These findings suggest that the social environment supports a diverse population of media organizations through a complex interplay of broad and narrow niched organizational forms with varying degrees of niche separation across dimensions, but some mediums may also be vulnerable to 161 competitive displacement. The results must be interpreted within the limitations of the study, however. Limitations of the Study The limitations of the study are related to two issues: (1) the descriptive nature of the study and (2) the question of superiority versus equivalence. Description. While description serves a useful purpose in the early stages of social science inquiry, the phenomena under study were the systemic relations between a population of organizational forms and their social environment. Although the study represented a first attempt at measuring managerial gratifications sought and obtained from business news content, the survey research methodology and sampling procedures were appropriate but adequate only for description of the current state of systemic relations. Moreover, description can be extended only to the systemic relations among six of the organizational forms in the population which offer business news. Finally, the descriptive nature of the study forecloses conjecture about changes in the population, which only longitudinal studies would be able to track. Superiority versus Equivalence. If a niche overlap indicated that two mediums may be substitutable or serve as functional alternatives for similar need gratifications, the next research question asked which medium was the superior competitor. When the t-tests for correlated groups were calculated, the power analysis did not support acceptance of the null of equivalence for the 162 non-significant pairwise comparisons. In most instances, effect size was small and cell sizes were simply insufficient to gain the high power necessary to reject the null. In seven of the statistically significant comparisons the small cell sizes prevented rejecting the null for a moderate or large effect. Even though cell sizes dwindled in the managerial substrata, however, power remained high as long as the effect size was high. Although previous research (Frank and Greenberg, 1980) suggested that managers might be above average users of print media, for example, the number of managers who used both magazines and newspapers (N=82) was insufficient to accept or reject the null of equivalence for the effect size of .30. Instead, a cell size of N=200 would be needed to achieve power of .80 (Cohen, 1969). Thus, future research should consider an overall sample size of N=800 so that cell sizes are adequate to detect small effects. Beyond these limitations, measurement reliability and validity was one of the major strengths of the study. Reliability and Validity The GS reliability coefficients of .74 on both the macro and micro dimensions were acceptable for the purpose of defining the macro and micro dimensions in the resource space available to the population of media organizations. The GO reliabilities were more critical, since the gratifications obtained were to be used to define the ecological variables of niche breadth, overlap and superiority. The GO reliability coefficients ranged from .80 to .99 and indicated high 163 inter-item consistency on the macro and micro GO factors for the six media. Even so, the cell sizes for the breadths and overlaps among the non-service industries were extremely low, and consequently the variation in overlaps for this subgroup should be viewed tentatively and with caution. As an internal validity check, respondents were asked to select their preferred medium for business news in a forced choice question. If the gratifications obtained items are valid indicators, then the sum of the gratifications obtained should be higher for the chosen medium than for other media the repondent used. Specifically, respondents were asked "if you could only use one medium for business news, which one would you select"? If a respondent selected the daily newspaper, then we would expect that the respondent's sum total of gratifications obtained from newspapers would exceed the gratifications obtained from the other media used by the respondent. Moreover, a respondent's choice of medium might be related to gratifications obtained on either the macro or micro dimension. Television, for example, would be more likely to be associated with higher GO levels for the macro dimension than for the micro dimension. As a result, a chi square test was performed for both the macro and micro dimensions to test the null hypothesis of no association between media choice and the level of gratifications obtained from the prefered medium. GO Level was defined as a dichotomous variable with two levels: (1) higher than other media GO's and (2) lower than other media GO's. The GO sums were calculated for each dimension for each 164 Table 51 Media Choice Compared to Level of Gratifications Obtained from Other Media MACRO Lower Total Televison 16 5 21 Cable 25 1 26 Newspaper 65 18 83 Magazine 10 0 10 WSJ 93 4 97 Trade press 45 24 69 Total 254 52 306 Chi square = 47.04 Degrees of freedom = 5 Significance level < .001 MICRO Higher______Lower Total Television 9 12 21 Cable 23 3 26 Newspaper 63 20 83 Magazine 10 0 10 WSJ 88 9 97 Trade press 67 2 69 Total 260 46 306 Chi square = 46.91 Degrees of freedom = 5 Significance level < .001 165 medium used by each respondent. Frequencies were tallied for the number of respondents whose GO sum for the media choice was higher or lower than other media used. Table 51 shows a significant chi square for both dimensions. The preferred medium was more likely to receive higher GO ratings than the other media used on both dimensions. The only exception was television. Of the 21 respondents who chose television as their preferred medium, 16 rated television higher than other media used on the macro dimension, but 12 rated it lower than other media on the micro dimension. External validity refers to the liklihood that another researcher using the same methods would replicate the results. To some extent, the current study replicates some the findings reported by Dimmick et al. (1985). Using somewhat different Sd and Sm measures Dimmick et al. found newspapers and cable were superior to broadcast television on the cognitive dimension for news in general. These relationships persisted in the current study for business news content. Ecological validity refers to the representativeness and generalizability of the study. Comparable 1980 Census Bureau data showed Franklin county to have more managers and more service industries than the nation as a whole. Census figures indicated 11.2% managers and administrators in the United States and 12.4% in Franklin county (U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, 1980, 1984). Service industries employed 61.7% of the U.S. labor force, but 70.3% in Franklin county. The service sector has grown at an annual rate of 166 7% since 1960, and acelerated sharply in fiscal 1984-85 ("Why service jobs," 1985). In the current study 85% of the managers worked in service industries, which reflected an annual 7% increase from the 70.3% figure in 1980. Small businesses employed 34% of the labor force nationwide, but 52.7% of the managers in the sample reported working in small businesses. These data suggest that the sample may be representative of Franklin county, which appeared to be heavily service oriented. Thus, generalizability beyond Franklin county may be limited, although an argument could be made that the county is a bellweather of national trends. At the same time, the results also have theoretical and practical implications and suggest areas for further study. Implications and Areas for Future Study The uses and gratifications approach aided conceptualization and measurement of sustenance and competitive relations between the population of media organizations and the managerial collectivity in the social environment. The managerial gratifications sought provided a two dimensional resource space for the population of media organizations offering business news content. The gratifications obtained indicated how well each medium utilized the available resources on each dimension. The niche breadths, niche overlaps and competitive superiority measures derived from the gratifications obtained items demonstrated patterns of ecological organization that have both theoretical and practical implications. Managerial Gratifications. The macro and micro dimensions of managerial gratifications were consistent with the socialization perspective of uses and gratifications and theories of organizational behavior. The overall similarity in managerial gratification factor dimensions lends support to the contention that media expectations are learned over time through social interactions and enactment of social roles in the managerial collectivity (Bauer, 1973; Davison, 1974; McQuail, 1979). Since individuals participate in multiple social groups, organizational theorists (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978; Weick, 1979) hold that individuals are only partially included in the organization and participate in the collective structure by virtue of their role behaviors, which in turn are circumscribed by organizational and environmental constraints. The macro and micro dimensions which emerged in this study reflected the needs of individuals in their roles as managers for information about opportunities and threats in the external and operational environments (Wiersema, 1983). Thus, managerial media expectations were respresentative of their role responsibilities and directed toward gathering information from external media sources in order to manage environmental contingencies. The macro and micro dimensions of managerial information needs differed only somewhat by managerial levels, and these differences appear to be consistent with their organizational roles and positions. Consistent with their boundary spanning roles, keeping up with local business conditions was a component of the micro dimension for 168 flrstline and top managers. Since firstline supervisors have more direct contacts with customers and suppliers, keeping up with local business conditions was part of their need for information about the operating environment. Top managers may be equally concerned with local business conditions as part of their corporate responsibility to the local community. Since middle managers are buffered from the day-to-day transactions in the operational environment, keeping up with local trends was part of their macro level needs. Mergers and actions of courts and regulators were not components of the macro set of media expectations for middle managers, who may look to other perhaps internal sources for this type of information. Finally, since firstline managers are concerned about improving their role performance, learning about managerial styles was part of the firstline supervisor’s micro level needs, but not for middle and top level managers. Aside from the slight differences across managerial levels, managerial media expectations did not differ across size of company or type of industry. This finding suggests that the mangerial collectivity (at least in Franklin county) is a rather homogeneous group at least in its expectations of business news content in the media. On the other hand, other variables such as the life cycle position of the company (Kimberly & Quinn, 1984) may be more relevant to managerial media expectations than company size or type of industry. Still other variables such as the amount of uncertainty in the industry may be related to managerial information needs. 169 At the same time, ecological variation in competitive superiority occurred among the general and specialized media on the macro and micro gratification factors. The Journal was superior to the trades and the general news media on the macro dimension, and the trade press was the superior medium in micro gratifications. Recall that macro and micro GO interfactor correlations were low for the Journal and the trades, which suggested that satisfaction of macro needs may not be accompanied by micro gratifications. As a practical matter, managers seeking optimum media gratifications should use both the Journal and the trade press. The findings also suggest that the managerial subgroups provide small yet valuable pockets of superiority, e.g., cable superiority among managers in service industries and trade press macro superiority over newspapers among top managers. An item-by-item analysis could determine the strengths and weaknesses of each medium on each dimension for each managerial subgroup. Medium v. Content Gratifications. Previous uses and gratifications studies have suggested a division of labor among in media in need gratifications. Researchers have concluded that television was more "diffuse" and provided a broad spectrum of need gratifications, while newspapers were more "specific" for informational gratifications (Katz et al., 1973; Kippax & Murray, 1980). The current study focused on a particular type of content — business news — and found a different division of labor to be associated with these content-specific gratifications. The niche 170 breadths showed that the specialist media were more "diffuse" and general news media more "specific" in their range of resource activities. Moreover, dimensional differences were observed. The Journal provided the broadest range of macro gratifications, but the trade press registered the highest niche breadth for micro gratifications. Among the generalists, newspapers and magazines and cable television utilized a wider range of resource categories on the macro dimension than did broadcast television, while newspapers and magazines were more broad niched on the micro dimension than cable and broadcast television. The major point to be made here is that the prior studies measured gratifications at the level of the medium, while the current study focused on content-specific gratifications. Thus, careful distinctions must be made between gratifications obtained from a "diffuse medium" or from a medium that provides "diffuse content" gratifications. This clarification will be important, if future uses and gratifications studies turn their attention to specialist media, as suggested by Rayburn et al. (1984), and particularly when ecological theory is combined with the uses and gratifications approach to study the competition between generalist and specialist media. Population ecology refers to a broad niched organizational form as a generalist and a narrow niched form as a specialist, and potential confusion can arise between "diffuse" and "specific" gratifications unless the medium or content level of gratifications is clearly identified. 171 Competitive Displacement. Since the current study was based on a social ecology model of systemic relations between and among media organizations and the audiences they serve, the specialist and generalist media were defined by virtue of their organizational domain choices (Thompson, 1967). A medium with a generalist domain was defined as one which offered business news content as one component of its overall news coverage, while a medium with a specialist domain devoted exclusive coverage to business news content. As noted in Chapter I, organizations with both specialist and generalist domains have dramatically increased their coverage of business news since 1980. In this regard, we might expect some signs of impending competitive displacement in the population. The more similar the gratifications provided by two mediums, the higher the overlap, and the more likely that one medium may yield a portion of its niche. This domain expansion activity has been particularly noteworthy among the general news media, and the high overlaps suggest that newspapers, magazines and broadcast television may be vulnerable to cable, the newest competitor in the population. In these high overlap situations magazines and newspapers achieved some superiorities over cable particularly on the micro dimension, while cable attained superiority over broadcast television primarily for macro gratifications. Despite attempts to expand coverage beyond reporting Dow averages, television was at the end of the spectrum with the lowest breadths on both the macro and micro dimensions. With more business 172 news programming and aggressive targeting of the managerial audience, however, cable emerged with a niche breadth on the macro dimension comparable to newspapers and magazines. The overlaps indicated that cable may gain at least a short-run selection advantage by imitation of its closest competitors, magazines and broadcast television. Cable combines the attributes of a visual medium with a magazine format in its competition with broadcast television and news magazines for GO ratings. Regardless of the increased domain activity of the generalists, overlaps with the specialists were relatively low and indicated more niche separation. Thus, the Journal and trade press appeared least vulnerable to threats from the general news media on the macro and micro dimensions respectively. The Journal also had the highest niche breadth on the macro dimension and the trade press on the micro dimension. Thus, the Journal provided the broadest spectrum of managerial need gratifications related to the macro or external environment, while the trade press satisfied the widest range of information needs related to the micro or operational environment. Nontheless, the specialists were not impervious to threats from the general news media. On the macro dimension higher overlaps prevailed between the trade press and magazines, but no superiority emerged. Overlaps between the Journal and magazines were also high on the micro dimension, and indicated some potential vulnerability. The Journal was superior to magazines for micro gratifications for the total sample and all substrata, but not among top managers. The 173 niche breadths showed that magazines satisfied a slightly more diverse set of items on the macro dimension than the trade press, but fewer than the Journal on the micro dimension. Since organizations and environments are characterized by a state of dynamic equilibrium, evolving competitive interactions could easily change the current state of systemic relations. Hence, the Journal and trade press could attempt to solidify their positions on the micro dimension relative to magazines. Conceivably, cable may make further gains with the managerial audience for business news. At the same time, the aftermath of recent corporate takeovers of television networks may result in changing news policies and operations. Given the emergent property of systems, however, it is likely that the sustenance and competitive relations captured in the current study would at least constrain the future state of the system. Aside from these considerations the superiority results also showed that there were more clear differences in media performance on the micro dimension than on the macro dimension. Only the Journal was operating from strength on the macro dimension, but both specialists had high micro niche breadths. Neither specialist had to contend with uncomfortable overlaps, and the specialists outperformed all four general news media on the micro dimension. In addition, both magazines and newspapers made some gains on the micro dimension over cable television. Magazines and newspapers exhibited more generalism on the micro dimension than cable to achieve more micro superiority. This result is not surprising, when the micro items are considered. 174 Print media like newspapers and magazines can offer more in-depth and detailed coverage about competitor and product improvement ideas* Print versus Electronic. Print domination over the electronic media prevailed for managerial gratifications related to needs for macro and micro environmental information. Of the eight print versus electronic comparisions on each dimension, a print medium was superior in each instance. The macro and micro dimensions centered on managerial information needs about the external and operational sectors of the business environment, and "attempts to correlate informational elements may stem from a need for cognitive mastery of the environment" (Katz, Blumler & Gurevitch, 1974, p. 28). Print domination was consistent with previous uses and gratifications studies, which showed print media provide more informational need gratifications (Lometti et al., 1977; Weaver et al., 1980). Previous research also documented more print media use and less television use associated with needs for intellectual stimulation in the audience segment with interest in business and use of business news media (Frank & Greenberg, 1980). Complexity of information may also be a factor and print media can transmit and store more complex information than television or cable business newscasts. These findings suggest that print or text-based electronic media may be acceptable and compatible innovations, but that is an empirical question. While both dimensions are characterized by a primarily cognitive orientation, this is an apparent contradiction to most uses and gratifications studies which also report entertainment and diversion 175 gratifications. The macro dimension reflected a general scanning to keep abreast of trends, e.g., "to keep up with new technology". The micro dimension connoted more instrumental information seeking activity, e.g., "to analyze competitor's strategies" or "to evaluate opportunities for new markets". Although the macro scanning and micro utilitarian pattern was void of entertainment, arousal and diversion gratifications, the micro dimension incorporated such interpersonal utility gratifications as "to get new ideas to pass along to other people in the company". Conceivably, business news content may have entertaining or exciting consequeiices, but consequences are quite different from either gratifications sought or gratifications obtained (Windahl, 1981). The general lack of television superiority, on the other hand, might be attributed to the time and schedule constraints of busy managers. Some managers might view the business reports on the network early morning or late night news programs, but miss the early evening network news. In addition, network news devotes only an average of 90 seconds to a story. Sammon et al. (1984) suggest simply that managers prefer a documented record such as news clippings and reports over the less verifiable electronic media. The possibility can also not be ruled out that media credibility may influence respondents' evalations. While these considerations have some merit, television was not totally inferior across all comparisons. Even though no television superiority emerged in the pairwise comparisons, television was the medium of choice for at least a small fraction of 176 respondents. Moreover, gratifications from televised business news reports were only obtained from respondents who reported using television as a source of business news. The question of availability, however, suggests that future studies may need to include time spent media behavior measures. As noted in Chapter I, the niche is viewed as the sum total of the trophic, spatial, and temporal adaptations of the individual, population or community to its environment (Pianka, 1978). Grubb (1986) defined the phenological niche of plants as the temporal or seasonal pattern of variation in the environment of the population. In the phenological niche two plants can coexist if each captures nutrients at different times. The concept of the phenological niche, then, could be applied in future studies to incorporate the temporal variation in need gratification superiorities among the population of media organizations. In terms of managerial gratifications from business news, for example, one medium may be superior during the peak tax preparation season but not during times of corporate transition such as mergers. At the same time, managers gather information from other external and internal sources, both interpersonal and mass mediated. Although continued information search may serve the purpose of legitimzing decisions (Feldman & March, 1981), managers may use alternative sources for a number of reasons, including verification of conflicting information. The combination of niche theory and uses and gratifications could profitably be applied to the study of these 177 competing alternatives. In conclusion, this study combined the uses and gratifications approach with ecological theory to describe the pattern of ecological relations among the population of media organizations as they seek to satisfy managerial need gratifications for business news. The study demonstrated that when the audience is viewed as a social group with a constituent symbol sphere, a unique set of media expectations was associated with media content pertinent to the managerial role. Evidence of niche differentiation or separation in macro and micro need gratifications was noted, which suggested how the social environment supports a diversity of organizational forms. Conceptualized as indicators of the social origins of managerial information needs, such attributes as managerial level, size of company and type of industry further elaborated a complex pattern of ecological organization. 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Gratifications sought and obtained in program dependency: A study of network evening news programs and 60 minutes. Communication Research, 9, 539-560. Whittaker, R. H. (1975). Communities and ecosystems (2nd ed.). New York: Macmillan. Wiersema, F. D. (1983). Strategic marketing: Linking marketing and corporate planning. European Journal of Marketing, 17, 46-56. Wilensky, H. C. (1967). Organizational intelligence. New York: Basic Books. Windahl, S. (1981). Uses and gratifications at the crossroads. In G. C. Wilhoit & H. deBock (Eds.), Mass communication review yearbook (pp. 174-185). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Why service jobs can't keep stoking the economy. (1985, July 8). Business Week, p. 62. APPENDIX A: BUSINESS NEWS PILOT QUESTIONNAIRE Hello, my name is ( ). I am calling from the Department of Communication at Ohio State University. We are conducting a survey of the ways people use the media to get business news and information. Are you a subscriber to cable television? (IF NONE, TERMINATE) I see. Well our survey concerns different sources of business news, including cable television. Since you are not a subscriber to cable television, the questions will not apply to you. But thank you very much. Have a good afternoon, evening. (IF YES) I am interested in speaking to someone who works in a management position. May I speak with the person who fits this description, please? (REPEAT INTRODUCTION TO NEW PERSON IF NECESSARY) (IF NO) I see. Well, < ic survey concerns the impact of new technlogies on the business environment. Thank you very much. Have a good afternoon/evening. (IF YES) Your phone number was randomly selected for participation in our study. All of your answers will be anonymous and confidential. Would you be willing to take some time to answer some questions? (IF ANSWER IS NO) Would there be another more convenient time we could call you back? (GET SPECIFIC DATE AND TIME IF POSSIBLE) (IF ANSWER IS YES) Thank you. That will be very helpful to us. We want to learn more about the ways managers use the media for business news and information. We will be asking you some questions about your needs for business news and information and how the stories or programs in the media satisfy these needs. STORIES AND PROGRAMS 1. First of all, which media do you usually use to get most of your business news and information? (RECORD ON ANSWER SHEET) (PROBE) Anything else? 188 189 On this next question, I would like you to take your time, think carefully, and try to recall the specific programs, channels, and types of stories that you read in newspapers, newsletters, magazines and information services that you use at home or in the office. I will let you think for a few moments about which programs, channels or stories you use for business news and information. (PAUSE ABOUT 5 SEC) 2. Now, can you tell me which programs, channels and types of stories you use for business news and information? (RECORD ON ANSWER SHEET. ONLY USE NEUTRAL REINFORCERS SUCH AS "I SEE" OR "OK" AFTER EACH MENTION.) (PROBE) Are there any other programs or channels that you watch or types of stories that you read? (RECORD ON ANSWER SHEET. USE ONLY NEUTRAL REINFORCERS AFTER EACH MENTION.) (NOW USE POSITIVE REINFORCER) OK, Thank you. What you've told us is very helpful. BUSINESS NEWS ^ INFORMATION NEEDS Now we are also interested in the needs managers have for business news and information, either related to your job or your personal investing decisions. We want to know what needs are satisfied by the stories, programs and services that you use for business news and information. In describing the needs that are served by each program, story and service, please use any words orphrases that are raeaningul to you. 3. (REPEAT AS NEEDED) Now, how would you describe the needs you have that are satisfied by ( INSERT NAME OF BUSINESS NEWS PROGRAM, STORY OR SERVICE )? (RECORD ON ANSWER SHEET. USE NEUTRAL REINFORCER AFTER EACH VERBALIZATION SUCH AS "YES", "I SEE", "OK", OR "PLEASE GO ON" UNTIL RESPONDENT RUNS DRY) (IF RESPONDENT GIVES DUTIES AS NEEDS SUCH AS "BECAUSE IT'S PART OF MY JOB" SAY... That's interesting. Can you tell me what kinds of business or job-related needs are satisfied by ( name of business news story or program )? (RECORD ON ANSWER SHEET) (AT END OF LIST OF PROGRAMS, PROBE) Now, I would like you to think one more time about the needs you have, that are satisfied by these stories and programs. Are there any other needs you can think of, that you haven't mentioned so far? (REINFORCE ANY RESPONSES, AND RECORD ON ANSWER SHEET) (USE POSITIVE REINFORCER) OK, Thank you. This is really very helpful. This is just the kind of information we want. 190 NEED SPECIFICATION (OPTIONAL) (THIS SECTION MUST BE USED, IF RESPONDENT HAS DESCRIBED NEEDS IN VAGUE OR GENERAL TERMS LIKE "FOR CURRENT INFORMATION OR TO BE ENTERTAINED". WE NEED TO KNOW WHAT KIND OF CURRENT INFORMATION OR ENTERTAINMENT, OR WHAT THESE TERMS MEAN TO HIM/HER.) Now, I've asked you to describe - in general - the needs that you have that are served by business news stories and programs in the media. Next, I'd like you to describe - in more detail - some of the needs, so that I can be very clear about what you mean. (REFER TO LIST OF NEEDS GIVEN IN ANSWER TO Q. 3. REPEAT THE FOLLOWING SET OF QUESTIONS UNTIL EACH GENERAL OR VAGUE NEED HAS BEEN SATISFACTORILY CLARIFIED. RECORD ALL NEED CLARIFICATIONS IN Q. 4 SPACE NEXT TO 0. 3 ON ANSWER SHEET. WE BADLY NEED RESPONDENT ACCURACY HERE, SO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY ON THE USE OR NON-USE OF REINFORCERS.) Now, you indicated that ( NEED 1,2,3, ETC. ) was one of the needs served by the business news stories and programs in the media you use. I would like you to think for a moment, then explain in more detail what you mean by ( NEED 1,2,3 ETC. ). (PAUSE 5 SEC) 4. Now, would you explain in a little more detail what you mean by ( NEED 1,2,3 ETC. )? Again, please feel free to think out loud. (USE ONLY NEUTRAL REINFORCERS LIKE "UH-HUH" OR "I SEE") (PROBE 1 - IF RESPONSE IS EQUALLY VAGUE) I'm not sure what you mean. Could you explain what ( NEED 1,2,3 ETC. ) means more specifically to you? (PROBE 2 - IF RESPONSE IS STILL NOT SPECIFIC) I'm still not sure I understand fully what you mean... (TERMINATE ATTEMPT TO CLARIFY THIS NEED AFTER 2ND PROBE, AND MOVE ON TO CLARIFY ANOTHER NEED.) (WHEN EACH NEED HAS BEEN SATISFACTORILY CLARIFIED, THEN AND ONLY THEN, USE A FULL REINFORCER) Very good. This is just the kind of information we're looking for. UNMET NEEDS 5. Are there any needs that you feel business news stories or programs in the media could satisfy for you, that are not currently being met? (RECORD ON ANSWER SHEET. USE NEUTRAL REINFORCERS.) 191 (PROBE: IF RESPONDENT MENTIONS A SERIES NOT CURRENTLY ON THE AIR) What needs did ( series name ) satisfy for you? (RECORD ON ANSWER SHEET) 6. Is there anything else that you would like to add about the programs or needs we have discussed? (RECORD ON ANSWER SHEET.) Thanks very much. The help you've given us this (afternoon/evening) will help us better understand how the business news stories and programs in the media satisfy people's needs. Thanks again and have a good afternoon/evening. APPENDIX B: BUSINESS NEWS MAIN STUDY QUESTIONNAIRE Hello, my name is ( ). I am calling from the Department of Communication at Ohio State University. We are conducting a survey of different sources of business news in homes with cable television. Are you a subscriber to cable television? (like Warner QUBE, All American, KBLE, or Coaxial Cable) (IF NO, TERMINATE) I see. Well our survey concerns different sources of business news, including cable news. Since you are not a cable subscriber, the questions will not apply to you. But, thank you very much. Have a good (afternoon/evening). (IF YES) I am interested in speaking to someone who works in a management position. May I speak with the person who fits this description, please? (REPEAT INTRODUCTION TO NEW PERSON IF NECESSARY) (IF NOT A MANAGER) I see. Well, our survey concerns the impact of the new information technologies on the business environment. But thank you very much. Have a good (afternoon/evening). (IF A MANAGER) Your phone number was randomly selected for participation in our study. All of your answers will be anonymous and confidential. Would you be willing to take about 15 minutes to answer some questions? (IF NO) Would there be another more convenient time we could call you back? (PUT SPECIFIC DATE AND TIME ON THE CALL SHEET) Thank you very much. Have a good (afternoon/evening). (IF YES) Very good. That will be very helpful to us. We want to learn more about the different kinds of media that managers use, either at home or in the office , to look for news and information that might affect your business. Where do you usually get your business news and information? 192 193 (CIRCLE ALL THAT APPLY. PROBE FOR WHICH CHANNEL, STATION, OR NEWSPAPER) a) FROM GENERAL NEWSPAPER) Which newspaper? CJ DISPATCH USA TODAY b) FROM GENERAL NEWS MAGAZINE) Which magazine? TIME NEWSWEEK US NEWS & WORLD REPORT c) FROM RADIO) Which station? RECORD 1ST MENTION d) FROM LOCAL OR NETWORK TELEVISION) Which channel? A 6 10 28 e) FROM WOSU-TV 3A, PUBLIC TELEVISION) f) FROM CABLE TELEVISION) Which channel? CNN - MONEYLINE/WEEK, PINNACLE, INSIDE BUSINESS, YOUR MONEY FNN - MONEYTALK, FNN FINAL ESPN - BUSINESS TIMES, MGMT REPORT HBO - CONSUMER REPORTS C-SPAN - CONGRESSIONAL SATELLITE PUBLIC ACCESS NETWORK OTHER ______ g) FROM BUSINESS NEWSPAPER) WALL STREET JOURNAL OTHER ______ h) FROM BUSINESS MAGAZINES, NEWSLETTERS) BUSINESS WEEK, FORTUNE, FORBES TRADE PRESS i) D you use any computerized information services? 1 DOW JONES NEWS RETRIEVAL 2 COMPUSERVE 3 THE SOURCE A OTHER j) Anything else? (IF ANSWER IS ONLY ONE MEDIUM) Oh I see. The rest of the questions 194 in the survey focus on managers who use more than one news medium. Since you use only one news medium, the rest of the questions won't apply to you. But, we would like to thank you for your cooperation. Have a good (afternoon/evening). (IF ANSWER IS MORE THAN ONE MEDIUM) Very good. In this first set of questions, we’re interested in your general reasons or expectations for using business news and information in your work . Managers use business news for a number of different reasons. Some reasons may apply to you, and others may not. I'll be reading you a list of reasons many managers give for using business news and information related to their work , and I'll ask you to tell me how much each reason applies to you...a lot, somewhat, only a little, or not at all. By the way, if a statement or reason does not apply to you at all, please give it a "not at all". Any questions? (IF YES, CLARIFY. IF NO, SAY) Let's begin. 1. I use business news and information, to keep up with trends in the local business community? Would you say that applies to you... a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all 2. I use business news and information, to evaluate opportunities for new markets, customers, or clients? a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all 3. I use business news and information, to keep up with actions of courts, legislators or regulators? a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all 4. I use business news and information, to get ideas to pass along to other people in my company? a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all 195 5. I use business news and information, to keep up with national business trends? a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all 6. I use business news and information, to analyze competitor's strategies? a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all 7. I use business news and information, to keep up with economic trends in the GNP, growth indexes, unemployment or inflation? a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all 8. I use business news and information, to learn about new managerial styles? a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all (USE POSITIVE REINFORCER) This is going very well. 9. I use business news and information, to keep up with international business trends? a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all 10. I use business news and information, to compare prices and suppliers of products or services? a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all 196 11. I use business news and information, to keep up with trends in taxes and interest rates? a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all 12. I use business news and information, to get new ideas to improve our products or services? a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all 13. I use business news and information, to assess the impact of mergers and acquisitions? a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all 14. I use business news and information, to keep up with trends in new technology? a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all 15. I use business news and information, to find new ideas to help solve a problem or make a decision? a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all 16. I use business news and information, to keep up with trends in stocks, bonds, or the money market? a) a lot b) somewhat c) only a little d) not at all (USE POSITIVE REINFORCER) What you’re telling us is valuable information. Now, you said you use ______and ______and _____ and (REPEAT MENTIONS FROM PAGE 1) for business news and information. In this section, I'll read the same list of statements, but this time I'll ask you to tell me how helpful each medium is, in providing you with that type of news or information - a lot, somewhat, only a little, or not at all helpful. Any questions? (IF YES, CLARIFY. IF NO, SAY) OK, let's begin. 197 (READ ONLY THOSE MEDIUMS THAT APPLY) 17. To keep up with trends in the local business community? How helpful is ... LOT SOME LITTLE NOT .1 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .2 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .3 LOCAL-NETWORK TV ______ .4 RADIO ______ .5 PUBLIC TELEVISION ______ .6 CABLE TV ______ .7 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .8 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .9 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .10 TRADE PRESS ______ 18. To evaluate opportunities for new markets, customers, or clients? How helpful is ... LOT SOME LITTLE NOT .1 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .2 TV LOCAL-NETWORK ______ .3 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .4 CABLE TV ______ .5 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .6 PUBLIC TV ______ .7 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .8 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .9 RADIO ______ .10 TRADE PRESS ______ (USE POSITIVE REINFORCER) This is just the kind of information we need (READ ONLY THOSE MEDIUMS THAT APPLY) 19. To keep up with actions of courts, legislators or regulators? How helpful is ... LOT SOME LITTLE NOT .1 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .2 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .3 LOCAL-NETWORK TV ______ .A RADIO ______ .5 PUBLIC TELEVISION ______ .6 CABLE TV ______ .7 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .8 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .9 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .10 TRADE PRESS ______ 20. To get ideas to pass along to other people in your company? How helpful is ... LOT SOME LITTLE NOT .1 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .2 TV LOCAL-NETWORK ______ .3 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .4 CABLE TV ______ .5 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .6 PUBLIC TV ______ .7 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .8 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .9 RADIO ______ .10 TRADE PRESS ______ (USE POSITIVE REINFORCER) This is just the kind of information we need 199 (READ ONLY THOSE MEDIUMS THAT APPLY) 21. To keep up with national business trends? How helpful is ... LOTSOME LITTLE NOT .1 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .2 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .3 LOCAL-NETWORK TV ______ .4 RADIO ______ .5 PUBLIC TELEVISION ______ .6 CABLE TV ______ .7 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .8 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .9 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .10 TRADE PRESS______ 22. To analyze competitor's strategies? How helpful is ... LOT SOME LITTLE NOT .1 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .2 TV LOCAL-NETWORK ______ .3 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .4 CABLE TV ______ .5 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .6 PUBLIC TV ______ .7 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .8 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .9 RADIO ______ .10 TRADE PRESS ______ (USE POSITIVE REINFORCER) This is just the kind of information we need 200 (READ ONLY THOSE MEDIUMS THAT APPLY) 23. To keep up with economic trends in the GNP, growth indexes, unemployment or inflation? How helpful is ... LOT SOME LITTLE NOT .1 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .2 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .3 LOCAL-NETWORK TV ______ .A RADIO ______ .5 PUBLIC TELEVISION ______ .6 CABLE TV ______ .7 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .8 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .9 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .10 TRADE PRESS ______ 2A. To learn about new managerial styles? How helpful is ... LOT SOME LITTLE NOT .1 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .2 TV LOCAL-NETWORK ______ .3 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .A CABLE TV ______ .5 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .6 PUBLIC TV ______ .7 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .8 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .9 RADIO ______ .10 TRADE PRESS______ (USE POSITIVE REINFORCER) This is just the kind of information we need 201 (READ ONLY THOSE MEDIUMS THAT APPLY) 25. To keep up with international business trends? How helpful is ... LOT SOME LITTLE NOT .1 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .2 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .3 LOCAL-NETWORK TV ______ .4 RADIO ______ .5 PUBLIC TELEVISION ______ .6 CABLE TV ______ .7 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .8 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .9 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .10 TRADE PRESS ______ 26. To compare prices and suppliers of products or services? How helpful is ... LOT SOME LITTLE NOT .1 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .2 TV LOCAL-NETWORK ______ .3 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .4 CABLE TV ______ .5 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .6 PUBLIC TV______ .7 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .8 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .9 RADIO ______ .10 TRADE PRESS ______ (USE POSITIVE REINFORCER) This is just the kind of information we need 202 (READ ONLY THOSE MEDIUMS THAT APPLY) 27. To keep up with trends in taxes and interest rates? How helpful is ... LOT SOME LITTLE NOT .1 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .2 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .3 LOCAL-NETWORK TV ______ .4 RADIO ______ .5 PUBLIC TELEVISION ______ .6 CABLE TV ______ .7 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .8 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .9 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .10 TRADE PRESS ______ 28. To get new ideas to improve your products or services? How helpful is ... LOT SOME LITTLE NOT .1 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .2 TV LOCAL-NETWORK ______ .3 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .4 CABLE TV______ .5 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .6 PUBLIC TV ______ .7 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .8 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .9 RADIO ______ .10 TRADE PRESS ______ (USE POSITIVE REINFORCER) This is just the kind of information we need 203 (READ ONLY THOSE MEDIUMS THAT APPLY) 29. To assess the impact of mergers and acquisitions? How helpful is ... LOT SOME LITTLE NOT .1 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .2 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .3 LOCAL-NETWORK TV ______ • A RADIO ______ .5 PUBLIC TELEVISION ______ .6 CABLE TV ______ .7 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .8 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .9 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .10 TRADE PRESS ______ 30. To keep up with trends in new technology? How helpful is ... LOT SOME LITTLE NOT .1 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .2 TV LOCAL-NETWORK ______ .3 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .4 CABLE TV ______ .5 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .6 PUBLIC TV ______ .7 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .8 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .9 RADIO ______ .10 TRADE PRESS ______ (USE POSITIVE REINFORCER) This is just the kind of information we need 204 (READ ONLY THOSE MEDIUMS THAT APPLY) 31. To find new ideas to help solve a problem or make a decision? How helpful is ... LOT SOME LITTLE NOT .1 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .2 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .3 LOCAL-NETWORK TV ______ .4 RADIO ______ .5 PUBLIC TELEVISION ______ .6 CABLE TV ______ .7 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .8 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .9 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .10 TRADE PRESS ______ 32. To keep up with trends in stocks, bonds or the money market? How helpful is ... LOT SOME LITTLE NOT .1 BUSINESS MAGAZINE ______ .2 TV LOCAL-NETWORK ______ .3 GENERAL NEWSPAPER ______ .4 CABLE TV ______ .5 WALL ST JRNL - NP ______ .6 PUBLIC TV ______ .7 COMPUTER SERVICE ______ .8 GENERAL MAGAZINE ______ .9 RADIO ______ .10 TRADE PRESS ______ (USE POSITIVE REINFORCER) This is just the kind of information we need 205 (USE POSITIVE REINFORCER) This is really going very well. Just one final set of questions to help us process the information you have given us and we'll be done. 33. Now...Tomorrow, if for some reason you could only use one source for business news and information, which source would you select? (DO NOT READ, CIRCLE ONLY ONE) a) (LOCAL OR NETWORK TELEVISION) b) (PUBLIC TELEVISION-WOSU TV34) c) (CABLE TV) (NEWSPAPER) Which one? d) CJ, DISPATCH, USA TODAY e) WALL STREET JOURNAL, BUSINESS PAPER (MAGAZINE) Which one? f) GENERAL NEWS MAGAZINE g) BUSINESS NEWS MAGAZINE or TRADE PRESS h) (COMPUTERIZED INFO SERVICE) i) (RADIO) j) (DON'T KNOW, NO ANSWER) 34. What type of business or industry is your company primarily engaged in? ______ (IF RESPONDENT HESITATES) Would your company be engaged primarily engaged in... aa) business services ab) personal services a c ) hotel, entertainment ad ) professional services ae ) wholesale trade ag) retail trade a h ) construction ai) manufacturing aj ) finance, banking ba ) insurance bb) real estate b e ) transportation, warehousing bd) public utility be) telecommunications b f ) agribusiness bg) government Jj) DON'T KNOW, NO ANSWER 35. On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate the amount of change going on today in your industry? _____ 206 36. What is the approximate number of employees in your company (located in Franklin county)? aa) under 5 ab) 5-1A ac ) 15-24 a d ) 25-49 ae ) 50-99 a f ) 100-249 ag) 250-499 ah) 500-999 ai ) 1000-2499 aj ) 2500-4999 ba) 5000-9999 bb) 10000 or more jj) DON’T KNOW, NO ANSWER 37. What is your job title? 38. How would you describe your current position? a) superivisor b) department manager c) division manager d) general manager e) vice-president g) treasurer, secretary or other executive officer h) president i) owner or partner j) DON'T KNOW, NO ANSWER 39. Which of the following income categories would best describe your total household income? I will read you a list of categories. Please stop me when I reach your total household income level. a a ) under $10,000? a b ) between $10, 000 and $20,000 ac ) between $20 and $30,000 ad) between $30 and $40,000 ae ) between $40 and $50,000 a f ) between $50 and $60,000 ag) between $60 and $70,000 ah) between $70 and $80,000 a i ) between $80 and $90,000 aj) between $90 and $100,000 ba) between $100 anc $150,000? bb) between $150 and $200,ooo? be) over $200,000? jj) (DON’T KNOW, NO ANSWER) 207 AO. And, finally, what is your age, please? ______ (IF RESPONDENT HESITATES OR REFUSES) Let me read you a list of age categories. Please stop me aa ) under 18 years ab) 18 to 25 ac ) 26 to 30 ad) 31 to 35 ae) 36 to AO af) AI to A5 ag) A6 to 50 ah) 51 to 55 ai ) 56 to 60 aj) 61 to 65 ba) 66 to 70 bb) 71 to 75 be) 76 to 80 bd) 81 to 85 be) over 86 jj) (DON'T KNOW, NO Thank you very much. The help you've given us this (afternoon/evening) will help us better understand the ways managers use business news and information. Thanks again and have a good afternoon/evening. AI. (CIRCLE SEX, DO NOT ASK) a) MALE b) FEMALE j) COULD NOT TELL, DON'T KNOW